The 9th Circuit reaffirmed what the District Court found (sort of). Namely that NMFS can either list all Oregon Coastal coho (wild + hatchery) or they can list neither wild nor hatchery. They cannot list one but not the other. It's either both or none. As a result of that decision, Oregon coastal coho are no longer listed under the ESA.

That being the case, the amount of legal protection for these fish just went down considerably. In fact, that's why this suit was filed. So the timber companies and the resource extraction industries can continue to destroy salmon habitat without being held accountable. By anyone's standard, that can't be good news.

NMFS is currently undertaking a status review of all their ESA listings in light of the original District court ruling. Expect something later this spring. In my view, just because a salmon is raised in a hatchery does NOT mean that it's not threatened or otherwise at risk. If 95% of the salmon production in a river is located in one spot (a hatchery), that population is considerably more at risk, not less. Therefore, I would argue that if the wild population is not strong enough to stand on it's own, NMFS should list both hatchery and wild. In other words, protect them all.