Some more interesting speculation from tidepool:

link-enhanced version of this column appears at http://www.tidepool.org/ebbtide/ebb.cfm

NO APPEAL, NOW WHAT?

ebbTIDE never expected the National Marine Fisheries Service to appeal the September 10 court ruling that resulted in dropping Oregon Coastal Coho from Endangered Species Act protections.

Trying to apply ESA listings to salmon is a political nightmare, and U.S. District Judge Michael R. Hogan's decision offered NMFS a possible opportunity to wake up. That's the cynical reason. The less cynical reason is that little would be lost in terms of protection for salmon in Oregon if the case was left to lie. On the other hand if the feds appealed the decision and lost, about 20 other listings could be thrown out by the legal precedent that would be set.

Last Friday after we went to press, NFMS announced that they would not appeal Hogan's decision and would instead launch a reevaluation of their salmon recovery policies -- possibly stripping other salmon and steelhead runs of federal protection.

Legally and politically it is the path of least risk, but still will likely mark a titanic shift in Northwest salmon policy.

As vigilant readers know, this all comes down to telling the difference between hatchery fish and wild fish swimming in the same watershed. When NMFS made the coastal coho and many other salmon and steelhead listings, they counted the hatchery fish the same as the wild fish, but they then managed the wild and hatchery fish separately -- protecting the wild fish while clubbing the hatchery salmon to keep them from competing with wild stocks for limited food and habitat resources.

Hogan's decision essentially ruled that hatchery and wild salmon are the same, while, the "cornerstone of the government's salmon-rescue blueprint ... boils down to this: the wilder, the better," the Seattle P-I reported this week.

Now it appears that "salmon rescue blueprint" will be thrown out and a new one drawn up.

With a "yearlong reexamination of the fitness of hatchery fish now underway," the question is which way will the Feds go? Integrate hatcheries into recovery? Eliminate hatchery production? Count hatchery and wild fish the same -- thus delisting more salmon stocks where hatchery fish numbers are strong?

Some -- including the Columbia River Inter Tribal Fish Commission -- are arguing that hatchery practices can be reformed to boost salmon recovery. The tribes say that hatcheries can be managed in a way that aids salmon recovery while not hurting remaining wild stocks. Inter-tribe wants to use hatchery fish as a temporary supplement to a future date when naturally spawning fish can sustain themselves. To get to that point, fish habitat needs to be repaired of course. Killing the hatchery system without fixing the salmon habitat first, doesn't make any sense.

"We ought to figure out as a scientific community in the Northwest how best to make these fish as natural as possible and integrate them with the wild populations," Inter-Tribe's Don Sampson said. "Hatcheries ought to be used for a period of time. If that is 25 to 50 years so that wild populations can sustain themselves and survive, then we ought to plan to use hatcheries to get us through this bottleneck of mortality."

Some comments from NMFS spokesfolks this week seem to indicate sympathy with the tribes' position.

There has also been support for Sampson's approach in Washington State Fish and Wildlife for years. Biologists in Washington have even called for using hatchery fish to "create" naturally spawning runs where the habitat is underutilized or unoccupied by surviving wild runs.

This week, Gov. Gary Locke and other Washington state officials "applauded" NMFS decision to take a closer look at hatcheries role in salmon recovery. Locke's advisor and Power Planning Council chairman Larry Cassidy Jr told the Vancouver Columbian this week that he sees it as a "sign the federal government may give some credit to hatchery practices that have been modified recently to more closely mimic nature."

That goes against the growing conventional wisdom among salmon-savers that hatchery fish are bad news for wild stocks. Critics of hatcheries say that the changes in hatchery practices are still experimental "tinkering" that has yet to prove out. Instead of using hatcheries to help recover wild fish, these critics have been arguing for years that hatcheries need to be closed down to give wild fish a fighting chance.

"Where we've closed down hatcheries in the past," according to Bill Bakke of the Native Fish Society. "At least in some cases, the fish population has actually increased. It's this mythology that the hatchery is the source of our fish that is the problem."

Politically, there could advantages to including hatchery fish as a part of salmon recovery. It would reduce some of the heat from property rights advocates and landowners frustrated with salmon habitat protections for fish that "wind up clubbed or caught." And, by maintaining hatchery production -- odds are you get to keep your fishing seasons -- sport, commercial and cultural. Thus ensuring the support of three strong constituencies.

Politically, hatcheries are winners. If they weren't, they would have disappeared a decade ago.

Meanwhile, counting and protecting hatchery fish together with wild fish could have a number of different results. Runs where hatchery fish are strong could lose ESA protection even if the wild fish are on the verge of extinction -- something environmentalists fear will be politically tempting for the feds.

In theory, fishermen could also lose out on catching plentiful hatchery fish if a run is weak enough to still warrant ESA listing. Fishing groups actually wanted the Feds to appeal the Hogan decision, fearing they would lose fishing rights to hatchery fish. But, I'll shave my head if that actually happens.

"Give NMFS credit. They're not stupid," Cassidy told the Columbian. "They're not doing this so they can go for more listings."