March 1st, 2022

Spending the Winter on the High Seas of the North Pacific for the 2022 International Year of the Salmon

From February to April 2022, four research vessels and over sixty international scientists are participating in the largest ever pan-Pacific research expedition to study the complex ocean phase of a salmon’s life. 

The 2022 International Year of the Salmon (IYS) Expedition will involve a full ecosystem survey with pelagic trawling and sampling of marine life in the upper ocean, and will include research on physical, biological and chemical oceanography. Novel technologies such as autonomous gliders, environmental DNA analysis, and genetic stock identification will enhance research efforts. There will also be a gillnet vessel deployed alongside trawlers in the Gulf of Alaska to test the catch efficiency of different gear types. 

The 2022 IYS Expedition brings together scientists from Canada, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Russian Federation, and the United States—the five member countries of the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission (NPAFC)—to build on research from the 2019 and 2020 International Gulf of Alaska Expeditions. This activity is part of Basin-Scale Events to Coastal Impacts (BECI), endorsed as a UN Ocean Decade project, with the goal of developing a new, collaborative, international ocean intelligence system to rapidly assess the impact of a changing ocean on coastal socio-ecological systems using salmon as an exemplar.

Find out more and follow the 2022 IYS Pan-Pacific Winter High Seas Expedition.