Research Conducted by the United States on

Research on juvenile Pacific salmon in coastal U.S. waters began almost 50 years ago in Southeast Alaska, and has continued somewhat sporadically since then. The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS), through its various laboratories in Alaska and along the West Coast of the United States, has done much of the research on the early life history of many Pacific salmon stocks in all habitats of U.S. waters, including their period of residence in coastal and oceanic waters. In addition, several of the leading universities in this region (University of Washington, Oregon State University, University of Alaska) have contributed greatly to our knowledge of salmon in their early ocean residency. Much of the early research was done using fine-mesh purse seines, but recently surface fine-mesh trawl nets and gill nets have been used more widely. A large number of programs are actively sampling in coastal waters at the present time, and the geographic and temporal coverage is the most complete it has ever been. In this paper, we provide a brief overview of many of the studies that have been done, synthesize their major findings, and discuss some of the areas where we believe future efforts should be concentrated.