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Historical ecology has revolutionized our understanding of fisheries and cultural landscapes, demonstrating the value of historical data for evaluating the past, present, and future of Earth's ecosystems. Despite several important studies, Indigenous fisheries generally receive less attention from scholars and managers than the 17th–20th century capitalist commercial fisheries that decimated many keystone species, including oysters. We investigate Indigenous oyster harvest through time in North America and Australia, placing these data in the context of sea level histories and historical catch records. Indigenous oyster fisheries were pervasive across space and through time, persisting for 5000–10,000 years or more. Oysters were likely managed and sometimes "farmed," and are woven into broader cultural, ritual, and social traditions. Effective stewardship of oyster reefs and other marine fisheries around the world must center Indigenous histories and include Indigenous community members to co-develop more inclusive, just, and successful strategies for restoration, harvest, and management. 'Commercial fisheries have decimated keystone species, including oysters in the past 200 years. Here, the authors examine how Indigenous oyster harvest in North America and Australia was managed across 10,000 years, advocating for effective future stewardship of oyster reefs by centering Indigenous peoples.' [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As global fish populations face threats from climatic change and human exploitation, the value of Indigenous knowledge and technology for guiding restoration and conservation efforts is gaining increasing recognition. Indigenous fishers on the Northwest Coast of North America traditionally employed sophisticated harvesting practices developed through long-term relationships with marine ecosystems, which promoted sustained harvests. Here we examine traditional Pacific halibut (Hippoglossus stenolepis) hook technology which has been shown to reduce bycatch of nontarget species and is often described as highly size-selective. We investigate this technology using ethnographic information, analysis of fishing equipment curated in museums, and measurements of modern halibut. We identify regional variation and overlap in hook styles, expand previously established hook typologies, and observe the greatest number of hooks and the most stylistic diversity originating from Haida Gwaii, a location where available zooarchaeological data indicates high halibut abundance. We demonstrate that two measurements (hook lip-gap and barb-area size) disproportionately influence the maximum and minimum body size. Based on hook and modern fish measurements, we estimate the sample of hooks targeted fish between 53 and 145 cm in length, indicating a broad but flexible size-selectivity that has presentday relevance for fisheries conservation, including nonmortality slot-limit fishing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Distinguishing skeletal morphology of domestic and wild canids can be challenging. • Canids frequently occur in archaeological assemblages across the Northwest Coast. • Domestic dogs are the most common species designation, while wild canids are rare. • Among wild canids, wolves occur much more frequently than foxes and coyotes. • Canid abundance is highest in areas where small dogs were bred for wool production. • Domestic dogs occupy a large role in Northwest Coast social and economic practices. Domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) occur in the archaeological record throughout North America but few zooarchaeological studies have examined the extent of wild and domestic canids using multi-site observations across regions. Here, we present a meta-analysis of 172,310 mammal specimens identified from 210 archaeological sites along the Northwest Coast focusing on canid abundance, distribution, and osteological identifications. We show that canids have a ubiquitous geographic distribution and a high relative abundance in particular Northwest Coast sub-regions and that species-level identifications are overwhelmingly of domestic dogs in contrast to ~1% of non-domestic canids (wolf, coyote, and fox). Along with geochemical and genetic data, these zooarchaeological observations indicate a variety of roles for dogs including hunting, companionship, and wool production in a region lacking terrestrial agriculture and domestic livestock. We suggest the frequently applied taxonomic status of 'indeterminate canid' underestimates the extent to which domestic dogs played key roles in regional economies and cultural practices. Increased attention to resolving taxonomic ambiguity of canids through improving comparative collections and osteometric datasets will help clarify the non-conventional domestication pathways practiced by Northwest Coast peoples. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With climate, biodiversity and inequity crises squarely upon us, never has there been a more pressing time to rethink how we conceptualize, understand and manage our relationship with Earth's biodiversity. Here, we describe governance principles of 17 Indigenous Nations from the Northwest Coast of North America used to understand and steward relationships among all components of nature, including humans. We then chart the colonial origins of biodiversity science and use the complex case of sea otter recovery to illuminate how ancestral governance principles can be mobilized to characterize, manage and restore biodiversity in more inclusive, integrative and equitable ways. To enhance environmental sustainability, resilience and social justice amid today's crises, we need to broaden who benefits from and participates in the sciences of biodiversity by expanding the values and methodologies that shape such initiatives. In practice, biodiversity conservation and natural resource management need to shift from centralized, siloed approaches to those that can accommodate plurality in values, objectives, governance systems, legal traditions and ways of knowing. In doing so, developing solutions to our planetary crises becomes a shared responsibility. This article is part of the theme issue 'Detecting and attributing the causes of biodiversity change: needs, gaps and solutions'.