Contact: Brian Gorman FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(206) 526-6613 (O) 3/20/95
(206) 441-1250 (H)
The National Marine Fisheries Service has released its proposed plan to protect and restore endangered stocks of Snake River salmon, part of a population acknowledged at one time to be the largest in the world.
The 500-page document is based in large part on the recommendations made to the fisheries service last May by an independent Snake River Salmon Recovery Team. A recovery plan is required by the Endangered Species Act, once a species has been listed.
Today's proposed recovery plan emphasizes improving migration conditions for juvenile and adult salmon, increasing stream- and river-side protection for these fish and raising the chances for adult salmon to return to their home streams to spawn.
Snake River sockeye were listed as endangered under the Endangered Species Act in 1991. Snake River spring/summer chinook and fall chinook were listed as threatened in 1992 and reclassified as endangered in 1994 because of the very low number of adults that returned to their spawning grounds.
"This recovery plan," said William Stelle, director of the fisheries service's Northwest region in Seattle, "proposes a range of comprehensive and fundamental conservation strategies for salmon recovery, instead of relying on uncertain, piece-meal mitigation schemes that have been tried, without much success, in the past."
"It offers immediate benefits through steps that can be taken as early as this spring. And it holds out the promise of long-term salmon protection by allowing us to change and refine our plans as important scientific information becomes available in the future," Stelle added.
Stelle also said that the fisheries service would convene two special groups to keep track of the recovery plan's progress and make recommendations to the agency: a recovery implementation team comprised of state, tribal and federal policy makers, and a scientific advisory panel to provide scientific advice to the implementation team.
The proposed plan places new emphasis on enhancing in-river conditions for juveniles migrating downstream and adults returning upstream, better protecting the fishes' spawning and rearing habitat, improving the general management and allocation of salmon harvest, and updating the role of fish hatcheries.
Stelle said implementing the proposed plan would help the Northwest's ecosystem as a whole, not just listed salmon stocks. Specifically, many of today's recommended actions will directly benefit other species -- including other salmon stocks, sturgeon and bull trout -- and the integrity and stability of their habitat.
Harvest Management
Few Snake River spring/summer chinook and sockeye are caught in ocean fisheries, and thus the proposed plan concentrates on fall chinook salmon, which mix with a number of other natural and hatchery-origin stocks and are accidentally caught with them. Listed fall chinook are caught with other species from southeast Alaska to California in in-river sport and commercial fisheries and in treaty fisheries above Bonneville Dam.
The recovery plan proposes to increase the number of adult salmon that return to the spawning grounds by modifying the existing ocean and in-river harvest management rules, developing alternative harvest methods, and initiating a program to buy back fishing permits, gear and vessels in the Oregon and Washington commercial troll fishery and the non-treaty gillnet fishery in the mainstem Columbia River.
Hatchery Practices
The proposed plan calls for preserving the remaining salmon gene pools through captive rearing of natural fish, the creation of gene banks, and using hatchery propagation to increase natural fish abundance while maintaining the natural populations' distinctive characteristics.
The proposed recovery plan also lays out a program to minimize interactions between natural and hatchery-reared fish to reduce cross breeding, competition, predation and disease transfer.
Hydropower and Habitat Issues
On March 1 the fisheries service issued detailed plans for hydropower dam operations and habitat protection in two "biological opinions" submitted to two federal courts. The proposed recovery plan includes the material from these two documents and identifies additional hydropower and habitat actions to promote recovery. For example, the plan includes proposals for screening water, controlling exotic species and other salmon predators and competitors, and restoring historical habitat.
In addition to providing a program for halting the further decline of these listed stocks, the proposed recovery plan establishes when the salmon can be considered "recovered" and will no longer require protection under the Endangered Species Act. Once it is determined that the populations are rebuilding, numeric criteria will be used to determine if the species are recovered.
Sockeye salmon will be recovered when, over eight years, an average of 1,000 natural spawners return to Redfish Lake in Idaho and 500 natural spawners return to each of two of the four other Stanley Basin lakes in Idaho. Last year only one sockeye returned to Redfish Lake.
Snake River spring/summer chinook salmon will no longer require Endangered Species Act protection when the number of spawning redds (or nests) increase to 60 percent of the pre-1971 levels and 31,440 natural spring/summer chinook salmon are counted at Lower Granite Dam near Lewiston, Idaho. Last year approximately 1,800 spring/summer chinook were counted at Lower Granite Dam.
Fall chinook salmon will be recovered when 2,500 natural spawners return to the mainstem Snake River annually. In 1994, 404 wild fall chinook returned to the Snake River.