After several years of really good local fishing made possible by strong returns of Pacific salmon, stark warnings are emerging from the North Pacific. Two negative forces we don’t pay enough attention to when runs are strong — hatchery overproduction and El Niño — could potentially upend a relatively optimistic fishing outlook. 

Wild salmon are feeding in a warmer and more crowded ocean

Memories of the pressure El Niño places on salmon should still be relatively fresh. The accumulation of warm surface water along our coast pushes prey species deep or north, and can create exceptionally dry conditions inland. Juvenile salmon entering the ocean now may find their feeding grounds reorganized or emptied, forcing fish to burn more energy searching for food. Adults entering the rivers in the fall may face low flows and high water temperatures, making it harder to spawn successfully. This one-two punch looks similar to the last extremely warm phase between 2015–16 when the marine heatwave known as ‘The Blob’ merged with El Niño, hitting Fraser sockeye hard enough that it accelerated conversations about extinction-level risk for some Interior populations¹.

Fisheries Advisor David Mills

While many assume hatcheries are the magic solution to declining wild salmon numbers, mounting evidence shows that the 4.8 billion hatchery salmon flooding the North Pacific annually (the vast majority released by Alaska, Russia, and Japan) are competing for the same prey and same ocean real estate that all wild salmon need to survive². But while hatcheries can produce more fish, they cannot produce more prey for salmon in a warming ocean. 

In the United States, conservation groups have been pressing these arguments in federal court under the Endangered Species Act, challenging the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s reliance on hatchery supplementation as a substitute for genuine wild stock recovery.

New Fisheries Report Raises Alarm Over Falling Salmon Returns

Given the combined pressures of warming ocean conditions and intense hatchery production, the recent North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC) bombshell report that the 2025 commercial harvest was the lowest aggregate for an odd-numbered year since 1987 should not come as a surprise. Commercial harvest of pink salmon, which anchors many North American commercial salmon fisheries, declined dramatically from the last major odd year harvest in 2023.  Asian chum fell to levels not seen since 1973³.

With a potentially record-setting El Niño forming, researchers are warning that ocean temperatures in the central Pacific could climb 3°C above normal — a magnitude that would exceed the major marine heat events of 1997 and 2015⁴. The window for rebuilding, afforded by years of cool north coast conditions, and strengthening returns that gave wild salmon a genuine window, may now be closing.

Figure 2. NOAA Average Sea Surface Temperature Map (CBC News)

The NPAFC report and the looming threat of a record El Niño are two warning shots across the bow: We must look past the illusion of the artificial fix of hatchery production and redirect the vast amount of public money spent on salmon hatcheries towards efforts that will protect and restore wild salmon habitat in a changing climate, and support policies that allow for selective fishing when returns are favourable. B.C.’s wild salmon don’t need more fish competing against them in a stressed ocean.

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¹ Pacific Salmon Commission (1999–2002). Annual reports. Documentation of post-1997–98 El Niño depression in Fraser sockeye and coho returns.

² Ruggerone, G.T. and Irvine, J.R. (2018). Numbers and biomass of natural- and hatchery-origin Pacific salmon in the North Pacific Ocean, 1925–2015. Marine and Coastal Fisheries, 10(2).

³ North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (2026). Statistical bulletin, May 2026. 33rd Annual Meeting, Vancouver.

⁴ NOAA Climate Prediction Center (2026). ENSO forecast and outlook, May 2026. www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov

Feature photo credit: Tavish Campbell