Whidbey Island Near Shore Research Project

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Continued from page 10 and analyzed in the BA. Several lines of evidence suggest the proposal could even risk the extirpation of some individual populations within the LCR steelhead ESU. The request to raise allowable impacts on LCR steelhead is driven by the needs of the fishery, but the proposal fails to appropriately balance the interests of commercial fishing against the recovery needs of listed Lower Columbia River steelhead. For the last several years, WDFW and ODFW have attempted to prosecute a “demonstration” commercial fishery for hatchery spring chinook in the lower Columbia River utilizing so-called “selective” fishery-gear, tangle-nets and recovery boxes. The smaller-mesh tangle-nets and the recovery boxes (aerated tanks of water) are intended to reduce mortality and allow the release of non-target fish, in this case Threatened wild spring chinook and Threatened LCR steelhead. Unfortunately the “tangle-net” fishery has so far not been able to provide a productive fishery for hatchery chinook without exceeding the existing impact limits on either wild chinook or LCR steelhead. Unable to hold the fishery within established guidelines, managers simply requested that the guidelines be relaxed. Working with a coalition of advocates including the Wild Steelhead Coalition, Oregon Trout, the Native Fish Society, and Trout Unlimited, WT focused efforts on convincing the Oregon and Washington Fish and Wildlife Commissions to conduct the fishery under the 2% impactlimit, NOAA’s decision notwithstanding. The Washington Commission decided to essentially split the baby and approved a 4% allowable impact. But at the eleventh hour, the Oregon Commission, responding in large part to public input, stood up for the fish and rejected the impact increase. The 2005 fishery was conducted under the 2% impact limit for LCR steelhead. Preliminary data from the fishery indicates that impacts to wild steelhead were held below the 2% limit. However, the fishery was constrained by impacts to other wild stocks, and lower than expected returns of some chinook stocks. Ironically, wild steelhead returns appear to be lower than preseason projections by almost half. Had the fishery been conducted under the relaxed guidelines, impacts on steelhead might have been significantly higher than predicted by Compact managers, which creates serious questions about the two departments’ ability to manage impacts in these types of mixed-stock fisheries. WT fully supports the development of selective fishery techniques to effectively allow the sustainable harvest of relatively healthy salmon stocks while minimizing impacts to listed and other at-risk populations. However, the data from the tangle-net fisheries dating back to 2002 strongly reinforce the suggestion that tangle-nets used with recovery boxes are not effective non-lethal fishing gear, and may not be appropriate for conducting truly selective fisheries. Increasing risks on listed steelhead in order to accommodate this fishery is simply inappropriate. WT will continue to press NOAA Fisheries and the Columbia River Compact to reject this unsound proposal. NOAA Fisheries Proposes Inappropriate Hatchery Policy In May 2004, The Bush Administration proposed a new policy regarding the treatment of hatchery and wild salmon and steelhead in federal ESA-listing decisions. The administration intends to count hatchery salmon and steelhead in determining the health of wild populations, something most scientists say likely will impede longterm recovery. The policy faces broad opposition throughout the region from scientists, wild-fish advocates, environmentalists, community leaders, regional policy makers, and members of Congress. Working with a broad coalition of environmental organizations and wild-fish advocates, Washington Trout has contributed to developing a coordinated response to the proposal. Efforts before the May announcement may have influenced NOAA to retreat from some of the most potentially damaging immediate impacts of the policy, leaving 25 of the 26 currently listed populations of salmon and steelhead at least temporarily protected under the new policy. WT participated in public hearings, media and public outreach, and in drafting comments on the proposed policy, submitted in November 2004. While temporarily retaining federal protections for wild fish stocks, the policy will still use hatchery fish to determine the health of individual wild stocks, and could still result in the early and inappropriate removal of ESA protections from declining wild salmon populations and their habitats. A wide range of respected fisheries scientists and ecologists maintain that the policy would jeopardize the recovery of listed wild populations. NOAA’s own “Recovery Science Review Panel” has issued two reports highly critical of the proposal. Representatives from the RSRP noted in an article that appeared in the prestigious journal Science, “much evidence exists that hatcheries cannot maintain wild salmon populations indefinitely,” and warned that while it is contrary to the science, including hatchery fish in listing decisions “opens the legal door to the possibility of maintaining a stock solely through hatcheries.” (Emphasis added.) Also reacting loudly to speculation about the legal implications of the policy have been industry and development groups, who favor the removal of ESA protections for both hatchery and wild fish, and the reduced restrictions on logging, agriculture, and other forms of development that would result. It is clear they believe this 28
policy should open the door to early de-listings, and plan on using the policy to further that agenda. The foundation of NOAA’s new policy, that hatchery salmon are capable of contributing to the recovery of ESA-listed wild populations, is completely unproven. While hatcheries can produce fish for harvest, not one hatchery program designed specifically to supplement and recover a wild population has any record of proven success, and the preliminary results from these programs are far from encouraging. A review of hatchery supplementation programs in the Columbia River, published last year by the Columbia River Power and Conservation Planning Council’s Independent Science Advisory Panel, was extremely critical of current conservation-hatchery programs in the Columbia Basin, and found few encouraging results. Washington Trout believes it is irresponsibly premature to even partially base a salmon-recovery strategy on such an unproven and risky approach. At worst, it’s a cynical attempt to circumvent true recovery, for the benefit of particular stakeholders. In fact, far from being a means to recovery, the overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence strongly suggests that hatchery fish threaten the long-term viability of wild salmon and steelhead populations. Hatchery fish decrease the genetic fitness of wild populations, compete for food and habitat, spread disease, and promote increased predation. Hatchery runs create harvest pressures that declining wild runs cannot support. The offspring of wild-hatchery mating survive and reproduce much less successfully than true wild fish, weakening a population’s ability to sustain itself. Even if hatchery salmon were not an actual threat to wild fish, the statutory mission of the ESA is to recover naturally reproducing populations by preserving and restoring the natural ecosystems they depend on, not massproducing artificial facsimiles. The successful recovery of biodiversity and ecosystem-function requires both high quality habitat and high quality animals to interact with that habitat. Even a policy that preserves salmon-habitat protection through continued ESA-listing of wild salmon and steelhead, but allows those fish to be substituted with unfit hatchery fish, will not result in true or sustainable salmon recovery, and could in fact lead the region’s native salmon populations closer to extinction. WT Participates in West Coast Steelhead- Management Conference: In March 2004, WT Resource Analyst Nick Gayeski chaired two sessions of the 2004 Pacific Coast Steelhead Management Meeting in Pt Townsend, WA. The ninth biannual workshop, co-sponsored by the Pacific States Marine Fisheries Commission and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, was attended by managers and researchers from management agencies in Alaska, British WT Resource Analyst Nick Gayeski presenting at the Pacific Coast Steelhead Management Meeting. Photo: Ramon Vanden Brulle Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, and representatives from advocacy organizations including the Wild Salmon Center, Long Live the Kings, the Wild Steelhead Coalition, and WT. This was the first time a non-agency organization had chaired workshop sessions. Gayeski’s sessions included presentations from: John McMillan of the Wild Salmon Center on the mating structure and dynamics of steelhead and resident rainbow populations on the Olympic Peninsula; Nate Mantua, University of Washington, on incorporating variable ocean conditions in steelhead management; and Robert Behnke, Professor Emeritus at Colorado State University, and author of Trout and Salmon of North America, on the evolution of anadromy in O. mykiss. These issues will be central in how ESA-listed and other at-risk steelhead populations will be managed for recovery over the coming decades. Learning Lessons, Moving Forward The WSRI continues to be frustrated by the inability of state and federal agencies to meet their administrative responsibilities under the ESA in a timely manner. The submission of WDFW HGMPs came only in response to a WT lawsuit. The May 04 announcement of NOAA’s proposed hatchery policy came several months after NOAA’s own self-imposed deadline. NOAA missed by several months a deadline to submit a Draft EIS on Puget Sound salmon-harvest plans for public review. These continual delays underscore the need for the program to stay flexible, and suggest that the program-need will be ongoing for the foreseeable future. Washington Trout will continue to meet that need. The agencies charged with managing our public trusts are too often subject to conflicting political, social, and economic pressures. Protecting the public’s interest in scientifically sound, socially equitable, and legally appropriate salmon-recovery management requires the active participation of independent, technically competent environmental advocates. Under the Wild Salmon Recovery Initiative, WT will continue to monitor and review new policy-proposals and the implementation of existing ESA regulations; we will watch-dog relevant agencies, work directly with resource-management officials, participate on recovery forums, and where necessary, litigate to implement and defend provisions of the Endangered Species Act. @ 29
Page 1 and 2: Spring 2005 PRESERVE,XXXXXPROTECT,X
Page 3 and 4: The Fourteenth Annual Wild Fish Soi
Page 5 and 6: Sound nearshore on their way to the
Page 7 and 8: four years managing Washington Trou
Page 9 and 10: Required Reading: From King of Fish
Page 11 and 12: the condition only appears to exist
Page 13 and 14: Today, about ten miles of significa
Page 15 and 16: WT’s Executive Director, Kurt Bea
Page 17 and 18: tem Function, One Shovel-Full at a
Page 19 and 20: The faces of the individuals who he
Page 21 and 22: southern fetch. During the strong n
Page 23 and 24: passage to and from critical floodp
Page 25 and 26: Washington Trout is excited to be a
Page 27: and NWI field staffs have conducted
Page 31 and 32: Thank You Pete’s Coffee! While ma

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