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IJMS Editor’s Choice - How to give salmon a fighting chance

In the latest Editor’s Choice from ICES Journal of Marine Science, we explore how ecosystem-based management can better account for the growing and unpredictable pressures of predation.

Published: 16 October 2025

While salmon face many threats, the main reason they die—aside from being caught by people—is that they get eaten when they cross paths with predators. But understanding salmon survival isn’t as simple as counting how many are eaten or by whom. The real story lies in when, where, and why these encounters happen.

A salmon’s life is a dangerous journey. Man-made structures like dams, bridges, and even bright city lights act as traps, creating ambush points where predators gain an unfair advantage. Climate change adds further complexity: heatwaves and shifting river flows are constantly reshaping migration routes, timing, and even the size of the salmon making the trip. The result is a journey where survival odds shift at every stage, from eggs buried in gravel to adults returning home to spawn.

In this latest Editor's Choice article from ICES Journal of Marine Science, Wells and colleagues examine how ecosystem-based management can better account for the growing and unpredictable pressures of predation. Attempts to simply remove predators often backfire and become a game of whack-a-mole, where new problems pop up to replace the previous ones. Instead, the authors argue for a broader, ecosystem-wide approach: restoring river habitats so they can produce a more diverse range of juvenile salmon - some larger, some smaller, but all heading to sea at different times. It also means rebuilding other fish populations to distribute predator attention. By testing these ideas through advanced ecosystem models, scientists can identify which strategies strengthen the entire food web rather than just one species.

The goal is clear: to understand the complex ecological relationships that salmon depend on and to create the conditions for their long-term resilience in a rapidly changing environment.

Read the full paper, When, where, and why salmon become vulnerable to predation, in ICES Journal of Marine Science.

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Predators on salmon are diverse and numerous throughout their life history. Salmon begin life in the river exposed to, among other predators, insects, birds, and fish. As salmon migrate into the ocean, they are exposed to predators, including mammals, fish, birds, and fisheries. Returning salmon intersect with predators that take advantage of bottlenecks, such as bears. Photo: T. Quinn.

Brian K. Wells, David D. Huff, Thomas P. Quinn, Jarrod A. Santora, Dylan G. E. Gomes, Kelly Vasbinder, Katie A. Barnas, Brian J. Burke, Michael B. Courtney, Lisa G. Crozier, Jerome Fiechter, Kevin D. Friedland, Sean A. Hayes, Mary E. Hunsicker, Francis Juanes, Nathan J. Mantua, Cyril J. Michel, Elizabeth M. Phillips, Beth L. Sanderson, William H Satterthwaite, Andrew C. Seitz, Timothy F. Sheehan, Joshua D. Stewart, and Marc Trudel.