A few observations.

1) The ESA Committee (God Squad) can exempt Federal actions from the Endangered Species Act. The actions are something the Federal government either authorizes, funds or carries out. And there must be a situation where the ESA-listed species is being jeopardized by a Federal action, and there is no reasonable and prudent alternative that avoids jeopardy.

And more to the point, it is the ACTION the God Squad exempts, not the species (as OncyT correctly points out). So, if the action is exempted, the conservation burden falls on other sectors. For example, if a hydropower project is exempted, all the other H’s (habitat, harvest, hatcheries) have to overcome the unmitigated damage from the hydro project to ensure the species doesn’t go extinct. That’s great for the hydro project but really bad for the other H’s. So, in the end, an ESA exemption resolves nothing.

2) I would also note that virtually all salmon fisheries are mixed stock fisheries. Ocean harvest is the most obvious, and perhaps the worse, type of mixed stock fisheries. But the Buoy 10 fishery is also a mixed stock fishery. The salmon we’re harvesting at B-10 return to various parts of the Basin. Some of those stocks are strong, while others are ESA listed. And both return to the same area (B-10), at the same time (mid-August to early September), and it’s difficult (or impossible) to distinguish between healthy and weak stocks. That’s the exact definition of a mixed stock fishery. The best example is Fall Chinook from the Hanford Reach and the Snake River (both have wild adults).

So while I agree that mixed stock fisheries are a contributing factor in the decline of Pacific salmon, almost all of us participate in a mixed stock fishery whenever we put a line in the water. The only exception might be terminal harvest just below a salmon hatchery (e.g., Blue Creek on the Cowlitz, Drano Lake in the Columbia Gorge).

3) The Salmon Technical Team at PMFC has a ‘No Fishing’ option for North of Falcon fisheries. Under that option, there would be no ocean harvest of Chinook or coho from the Canadian border south to Cape Falcon (between Cannon Beach and Manzanita). That covers the entire Washington coast and about quarter of the Oregon Coast. In my view, that’s not a huge area, given the range of Chinook, coho, and SRKW’s.

However, if PFMC adopted a “No Fishing” option for SE Alaska, and the BC Coast (which they can’t do since they have no jurisdiction in Canada), that would be VERY helpful. Nevertheless, a “No Fishing” option in Washington and a slice of Oregon would send a huge and urgent message to the folks in BC and Alaska about the state of the salmon on the Pacific Coast.

Desperate times call for desperate measures……..