Proceedings of the PSARC Habitat Subcommittee Meeting

The SC agreed with the reviewers, however, that the design was not appropriate to address this relationship, or allow interpretation beyond the descriptive analysis of the data as presented in the working papers. [...] The SC agreed with a reviewer that the sampling information from Muchalet and Esperanza inlets contributed little to the assessment of juvenile sea lice and juvenile salmon in the Broughton Area. [...] As mentioned by the authors and reviewers, further research on the oceanography of the area, the abundance of wild hosts and the variability in sea lice populations among years may be valuable. [...] However, the authors clarified that this was not the intent of the paper, and that there were a series of different DFO considerations identified, including spatial constraints, development of a systematic and transparent system, and the incorporation of socio-economic and environmental data consistent with IM. [...] The overall objective of the study was to describe patterns of spatial and temporal variations in the prevalence and intensity (or abundance) of sea lice infections on juvenile pink and chum salmon in a limited area of coastal BC: the Broughton Archipelago and Knight Inlet.