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Current environmental crises disclose power hierarchies, such as within the negotiation of how to distribute natural resources. This paper focuses on the importance of acknowledging human-animal relationships and lived realities within the co-management and conservation of resources. The research draws on conflicting ontologies that can be found around salmon conservation in Southwest Alaska, especially around returning king salmon in the Kuskokwim River, which has seen a decline in numbers over the last decade. It illustrates the importance of considering the ontological constitutions of animals as beings, which renders the understanding of how human-animal relations can be maintained throughout crises. Rather than perpetuating the assumption that salmon are 'natural' objects, but understood and known differently by indigenous communities, the ontological approach enables us to recognize that salmon are not one entity but constituted beings in enacted worlds. ; Die aktuellen Umweltkrisen legen Machthierarchien offen, unter anderem in den Verhandlungen um die Verteilung von natürlichen Rohstoffen. Dieser Artikel stellt Mensch-Tier Beziehungen und lokale Lebensrealitäten in den Mittelpunkt von Naturschutzmaßnahmen und der Mitverwaltung von Umweltressourcen. Er analysiert verschiedene Ontologien, die mit verstärkten Maßnahmen zum Schutz von Wildlachs im Südwesten Alaskas sichtbar wurden. Der Fokus liegt insbesondere auf den Königslachsen, die zum laichen in den Kuskokwim Fluss zurückkehren, und die im letzten Jahrzehnt fallende Bestandszahlen aufwiesen. Besondere Beachtung gilt dabei der ontologischen Konstitution der Tiere. Anstatt Lachs als ein universelles, wenn auch unterschiedlich verstandenes und kulturell gedeutetes, Naturobjekt darzustellen, möchte dieser Artikel den ontologischen Ansatz dazu nutzen, um dieses Tier als konstituiertes Lebewesen in erlebten Welten zu verstehen. ; Peer Reviewed

The 1985 Pacific Salmon Treaty was heralded as an end to the ongoing international dispute between the United States and Canada over Pacific salmon fishing rights. The Treaty, however, failed to define adequately the principles and processes for allocating salmon harvests between the two countries. The parties to the Treaty have been unable to reach consensus on annual salmon harvests since 1992, fueling a growing conflict which has threatened to spill over to issues beyond the fishery dispute. This Article examines the historical context of the "salmon war," highlighting changes in international law and domestic politics that affected the formation of the Treaty. The Pacific Salmon Treaty established a framework for the parties to cooperate in the management of salmon stocks, but did not define several key principles and created a cumbersome voting mechanism. These deficiencies have resulted in annual negotiations that are fraught with conflict, leading to a breakdown in the Treaty process. This Article analyzes several alternatives for solving this current crisis. The parties could submit the annual allocation decisions to an international arbitration board that would have the power to bind both sides. Each country could agree to compensate the other country monetarily for interceptions of the other's salmon stocks. The Treaty could also be revised to provide for a default allocation scheme if the parties fail to reach agreement on annual fishery regulations. Finally, the United States and Canada could create an international market of individual salmon quotas. As this Article was being revised for publication, the United States and Canada entered into an historic agreement designed to end the Pacific salmon war. The Epilogue at Part VI of this Article discusses the new agreement and its future implications for Pacific salmon.

The ectoparasite Lepeophtheirus salmonis has for decades plagued salmon aquaculture by decreasing profits and impacting wild salmon stocks. To protect migrating wild salmon stocks and avoid excessive cross-farm infections, authoritiesrequiretreatmentswhensealicelevelreachagiventhreshold. The treatment threshold is set to protect wild salmonid stocks but also to avoid costly lice infections on neighbouring farms. Here we make a bio-economic estimation of optimal treatment thresholds. We are particularly interested in identifying conflicts between the optimal threshold of for the entire system of farms and for the individual farmer. We show that isolated individual farms can maximize profit by operating with a high threshold, while the maximum profit for an entire network of farms occurs with a threshold about 0.1 gravid female lice/salmon. These findings substantiate the Norwegian policy of lowering the lice treatment threshold below 0.5 gravid lice/salmon. The results also demonstrate that too low a treatment threshold results in high treatment rates. The difference between the optimal treatment strategy of individual farmers and that for the total system demonstrates that management of salmon lice infections operates in a tragedy-of-the-commons environment, where individual farmers may have an incentive to disregard legislation at the expense of the others in the network. This means that strong enforcement is needed to achieve optimal management of salmon lice infections.

This paper uses rich administrative data from the Deutsche Rentenversicherung (German Pension Fund) to describe changes in the timing and the spacing of births that occurred in the period following German reunification. We examine differences in the birth dynamics of East Germans, West Germans, and women who migrated between the two parts of Germany in these years. As the pension registers provide monthly records on whether a person is living in East or West Germany, they also allow us to examine the role of regional mobility in birth behaviour. In particular, we test the "salmon hypothesis", which suggests that migrants are likely to postpone having a child until after or around the time they return to their region of origin. Our investigation shows that a large fraction of the cohorts born in 1965-74 migrated to West Germany after reunification, but that around 50% of these migrants returned to East Germany before reaching age 40. The first birth risks of those who returned were elevated, which suggests that the salmon hypothesis explains the behaviour of a significant fraction of the East German population in the period following German reunification.

In a decision of 30 March 1995, the Government commissioned the National Board of Fisheries, in consultation with the National Environmental Protection Agency, to compile documentation concerning the situation of naturally reproducing salmon in the Baltic Sea. Original Baltic natural salmon has been severely decimated during the 20th century owing to the expansion of hydroelectric power in their growing waters. There used to be a natural occurrence of salmon in about 70 watercourses round the Baltic Sea. Natural salmon populations remain today in about 26 rivers (14 Swedish, 1 Swedish-Finnish, 1 Finnish and the rest Baltic). A comprehensive compensatory programme has been built up for the harnessed rivers as a replacement for the natural salmon production that has disappeared with the expansion of hydroelectric power. Salmon reproduction in the harnessed river is replaced through this programme by rearing of young salmon up to the size when they normally go out to sea. Today only one salmon in ten in the Baltic Sea is a natural salmon, while the rest are reared. Reared salmon has other characteristics than those that originally were favourable in natural conditions. From having coped with river life for 1-4 years before migrating out to sea, the salmon has changed to a form partially adapted to rearing, with a modified genetic base. By artificially maintaining salmon stocks in the Baltic Sea at a constantly high numerical level, salmon fishery has been able to continue and has even been intensified. Natural salmon is then caught to an equally great extent as cultivated. Adult salmon remain in the Baltic Sea for a great part of their growth period. The longer it takes the salmon to return to natural spawning waters in the river, the more it is exploited. Estimates show that no more than a quarter of the possible production of natural salmon round the Baltic Sea is used, which can be regarded as a waste of resources, in both the short and the long term. Internationally determined catch quotas in the Baltic Sea, together with measures taken by the National Board of Fisheries in the form of closed seasons, closed areas, restrictions on gear and redemption of fishing traps, resulted in an increase of natural salmon stocks from the end of the 1980's. The situation deteriorated, however, when M74 struck salmon stocks in 1992-93. One decisive problem is that salmon is caught internationally. Even though its spawning rivers are exclusively in Sweden, and to some extent in Finland and the Baltic states, it migrates to sea and resides as an adult all over the Baltic Sea. Swedish restrictions and efforts alone are therefore not sufficient. Swedish measures must be combined with reduced international exploitation of natural salmon in all areas. The strain on the Baltic Sea of environmental pollution is at the same time an international problem.