DOCUMENTS FROM NW FISHLETTER 134

SCIENCE PANEL KNOCKS NMFS OVER HARVEST POLICIES

An independent panel of scientists has issued a report that recommends the National Marine Fisheries Service re-examine its policies for setting salmon harvests that include ESA-listed fish, and take another look at the legal constraints under which it operates to determine whether Indian treaty rights and the Magnuson-Stevens Act are superceded by the Endangered Species Act. They suggested creating more opportunity for terminal area harvests to overcome some of these constraints.

The group, known as the Salmon Recovery Scientific Review Panel, includes six nationally respected experts in genetics, ecology and conservation ecology appointed by NMFS to oversee the work of the Technical Recovery Teams (TRT), who are being put together to develop recovery plans for listed stocks on the West Coast. The scientific panel meets with the Technical Recovery Teams several times a year to review their work on behalf of endangered salmon and to make recommendations.

The Scientific Review Panel concluded that NMFS continues to permit "biologically unsustainable" harvest levels of listed salmon, and they advise the federal fisheries agency to develop a more "rational policy."

They noted frustration "... to hear discussion of optimal harvest strategies, as if no other factors were involved... it is our view that it is this isolation that led to some counterintuitive recommendations, such as to continue the harvesting of declining populations."

The panel said it appeared that "harvest decisions are never connected with other factors in an overall restoration and recovery plan."

"The NMFS Scientific Review Panel shares many of our concerns over the way ESA-listed salmon are being harvested," said Kurt Beardslee, director of Washington Trout, a statewide conservation organization from the Seattle area. The group has filed a notice to sue NMFS over the agency's approval of its Puget Sound salmon harvest plan. -Bill Bakke

Meeting Report, Salmon Recovery Scientific Review Panel, Aug. 27-29, 2001
http://research.nwfsc.noaa.gov/cbd/trt/RSRP_Aug01.pdf

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