EPA's Vessel General Permit and Small Vessel General

support one or more Chinook salmon life stages. Specific sites include freshwater spawning and
rearing sites, freshwater migration corridors. The physical or biological features that
characterize these sites include water quality and quantity, natural cover, forage, adequate
passage conditions, and floodplain connectivity. Of 65 subbasins reviewed in NMFS’
assessment of critical habitat for the Upper Willamette River Chinook salmon ESU, 19 subbasins
were rated as having a medium conservation value, 19 were rated as low, and the 27 remaining
subbasins were rated as having a high conservation value to Upper Willamette River Chinook
salmon. Federal lands were generally rated as having high conservation value to the species’
spawning and rearing. Factors contributing to the downward trends in this ESU include reduced
access to spawning/rearing habitat in tributaries, hatchery impacts, altered water quality and
temperature in tributaries, altered stream flow in tributaries, and lost or degraded floodplain
connectivity and lowland stream habitat.
Final Protective Regulations
On June 28, 2005, as part of the final listing determinations for 16 ESUs of West Coast salmon,
NMFS amended and streamlined the 4(d) protective regulations for threatened salmon and
steelhead (70 FR 37160) as described in the Protective Regulations for Threatened Salmonid
Species section of this document. Under this change, the section 4(d) protections apply to
natural and hatchery fish with an intact adipose fin, but not to listed hatchery fish that have had
their adipose fin removed prior to release into the wild. The amended June 2005 4(d) rule
applies to the Upper Willamette River Chinook salmon ESU.
Chum Salmon
Description of the Species
Chum salmon are more widely distributed than other salmon, and may have at one time made up
nearly 50% of the Pacific salmon biomass in the Pacific Ocean (Salo 1991). Historically, chum
salmon were distributed throughout the coastal regions of western Canada and the U.S., as far
south as Monterey Bay, California, to the Arctic coast and east to the Mackenzie River, in the
Beaufort Sea. They also ranged in Asia from Korea to the Arctic coast of the Soviet Union and
west to the Lena River. Presently, major spawning populations on the west coast of the U.S. are
found only as far south as Tillamook Bay on the northern Oregon coast. In this section of our
Opinion, we discuss the distribution, status and critical habitats of the two listed species of
threatened chum salmon separately; however, because chum salmon in the wild are virtually
indistinguishable between listed ESUs, and are the same biological species sharing the same
generalized life history, we begin this section describing those characteristics common across
ESUs.
There are no known landlocked or naturalized freshwater populations of chum salmon. Like
Chinook salmon, chum salmon are semelparous (Randall et al., 1987 as cited in Johnson et al.
1997). Their general life cycle spans fresh and marine waters, although chum salmon are more
marine oriented than the other Pacific salmon. Chum salmon spend 2 to 5 years in feeding areas
in the northeast Pacific Ocean (Johnson et al. 1997). Chum salmon distribute throughout the
North Pacific Ocean and Bering Sea (Neave et al., 1976 as cited in Johnson et al. 1997).
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