The Pacific Fishery Management Council on day two confirmed hearing sites for the 2026 salmon preseason process and directed staff to pursue a formal peer review to re‑examine scientific reference points for Sacramento River fall Chinook.

Council staff and advisory panels recommended in‑person hearings in Westport, Washington, and Santa Rosa, California, and a hybrid format for a Newport, Oregon meeting. Executive director Burden told the council the widow rockfish assessment item was being moved later on the agenda to accommodate scheduling but that the groundfish calendar would not be affected.

The council then turned to a long‑running scientific issue: how to update SMSY, the spawner target used in management, after new analyses from the Sacramento River Work Group. The Scientific and Statistical Committee and the Salmon Technical Team presented differing technical assessments and asked for more scrutiny. Dr. Jason Schaffler of the SSC said the committee "supports an additional peer review step for the re‑estimation of SMSY" and recommended a basic review followed by iterative exchange if panel feedback requires further analysis.

Work group chair Will Satterthwaite outlined four data approaches—cohort reconstruction, a basin‑wide fry index, a juvenile index at Red Bluff, and a composite escapement index—and warned each has tradeoffs. He and other analysts flagged that cohort reconstruction remains the most informative method but currently lacks enough years of fully comparable data and will be sensitive to changes in hatchery marking and genetic tagging programs.

Council members generally supported an iterative peer review that could include SSC salmon subcommittee members and independent experts unfamiliar with the local process to reduce real or perceived conflicts of interest. Several members asked staff to draft terms of reference over the winter, seek agency and tribal input on participation, and return to the council in spring with a proposed peer‑review design and timeline. Angela Forrestal, council staff, said the peer review is likely to require more time than initially anticipated, and the June target may be optimistic.

The council also acted earlier in the day on related methodology items: it adopted a modified OPIH (Oregon production index hatchery) ARIMA‑based forecast with an exponential weighting that down‑weights older years, and it endorsed an interpolation approach for Oregon Coast natural coho marine survival index data (motions were made by John North and seconded by Vice Chair Smith, and both measures passed unanimously).

The council did not adopt a final FMP amendment at this meeting. Members said the peer review should be the first step, and that formation of any broad FMP amendment work group would follow once the review scope and membership are clear. Staff will coordinate a drafting period for terms of reference and will return with more detailed timelines and recruitment plans.

What comes next: staff will draft peer review terms of reference, consult with the SSC and NMFS on membership and scope, and return to the council in early 2026 with a proposed panel and schedule for review. The peer review will focus initially on the SMSY question but the council expects follow‑up work to connect any revised reference points to conservation objectives and harvest control rules.