I will throw out a suggestion on which way we should push, then you can all pick my ideas apart and we can go from there.

Lets throw the de-listing option out, I don't think it accomplishes what we want.

Break all the production hatcheries out into their own ESU and do not ESA list them. (The question I don't have an answer for yet is if this is legally a possibility.) This preserves our fisheries and maintains the separation between the majority of hatchery and wild fish.

Retain all the current ESA listings on wild fish ESU's.

Add to the wild fish ESU's all "improved hatcheries". I am talking about all wild broodstock hatchery programs with improved hatchery facilities. This would protect those fish the same as the wild fish and allow 4D exceptions to allow harvest of those fish as needed. These facilities will need to be evaluated for efectiveness at both reducing overall mortality and for sucessfull wild spawning. If these hatcheries are successfull at repopulating wild runs, we can look at further improved access to these fish in our fisheries.

somehow you all managed to blast this all the way off the first page in half a day! Too important to ignore, back to the first page.

Preston and Salmo, thanks for the reply to my question. I'm always interested in Skagit fish, it's my home river.

It looks like The Pacific Legal Foundation WWW.pacificlegal.org is taking full advantage of the situation. The last years drought has made apparent the conflict between salmon and all the industrial uses of our rivers. Last spring was a reality check for how shallow the public interest in salmon recovery really is. The prevailing opinion on the local radio talk shows I occasionally listen to was that with rising power bills and rolling blackouts, no one cares much about recovering wild salmon runs anymore, hatchery salmon will do just fine. After all, we have record runs of them. No mention of record kills of outgoing smolts. Given all this and a sympathetic federal adminisration, the PLF is making real progress on kicking what little salmon protections we have in the teeth.

The history on the decline of salmon in the Pcific Northwest has shown that there has always been protests of activities that destroy salmon all the way back to the 1800's. It has also shown that those protests where run over by the more powerfull interests that have little reguard for salmon runs. I found a list of the groups that have been granted the right to appeal the Hogan ruling.Oregon Natural Resources Council, Pacific Rivers Council, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Association, Institute for Fisheries Resources, Audubon Society of Portland, Coast Range Association, Siskiyou Regional Education Project, and the Sierra Club, represented in court by Earthjustice. I don't see any sport fishing group on this list. I would very much like to see a powerfull sportfishing group that was dedicated to a sportfishing economy in the PNW and one that was standing up to assaults on salmon conservartion and protection, but there aren't any. Like RT said, maybe it will take something like this to get a sportfishing group...... na nevermind. Since there isn't the perfect group to fight this action and I can't stand by and do nothing I will be sending earthjustice a check. I'll also be writing letters to every politician in the book. I just don't want to be looking back at these times as the good old days when we had some fish to fight over with the commercials and indians. Maybe it's inevitable that wild salmon will be reduced to reminents of what they were and I doubt if any fishing will be allowed on what will be left, but I'm not going to sit back and do nothing.


The only thing we have learned from history is we learn nothing from history.

Mike G. - Interesting suggestion. Create two seperate ESU's and list the wild one but not the hatchery one. It would probably serve the same purpose as listing both and doing a 4(d) rule.

However, the catch is whether there is sufficient biological basis for the distinction. Hatchery fish and wild fish are virtually identical, right down to their DNA. They even live in the same habitat and spawn at about the same time. The differences are related to behavior and survival, both in freshwater and salt. So are these differences sufficient to allow NMFS to list one but not the other thru an ESU? Clearly, the differences are sufficient enough to affect the returns of adults. Witness the large number of hatchery adults vs. the number of wild adults returning to spawn. But are they sufficient enough to warrant different listing decisions?

Unfortunately, it really isn't that clear. There's probably enough ambiguity in the data to allow the decision to be driven more by political consideration than by biological facts. But if there is enough information to justify different listing decisons, it might be a good position to take.

Just a couple of points. The decision was not based on whether or not there is a difference between wild and hatchery fish. The decision was based on the wording of the ESA, which forbade NMFS to differentiate below the sub-specific level. In other words, if hatchery fish cannot be identified as a subspecies of the existing wild fish they cannot be treated differently. As I said above it's a case of the letter of the law countering the spirit of the law. The latest word I have (Fish Net's NW FISHLETTER.134 11/21/01) says that the environmental and fisheries groups mentioned above were granted intervenor status on November 16th by Judge Hogan. They immediately filed a brief asking the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to stay Hogan's decision. According to the above source, NMFS had argued against allowing these groups to intervene. So, now, NMFS is developing "a new hatchery policy" and "..will begin reviewing the status of affected stocks and promises the review will be finished by next fall.", meanwhile the intervenors' brief will eventually go before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. ...And so it goes.

Keta,
I couldn't agree more with you. Where, oh where, is there an organization to speak for the sport fisherman! There are certainly a couple of groups who would like to take on that job; the Wild Steelhead Coalition (to which I belong) is one of them. Although it was founded as a more or less single-issue group, with getting wild steelhead made catch-and-release year-round and statewide its main aim, it will, hopefully, be looking for new issues to address after the upcoming round of fishing regulation hearings. I'm sure that most of us are aware of the financial impact of sport fishing on the state's economy, as opposed to that of the commercial fishing interests, but the state legislature doesn't seem to be. As one who spent years pissing and moaning about the decline of our sport fisheries without doing anything about it, I can only say: whatever good I might have done, it's been more of a hassle than I ever thought it would be but, at the same time, it's given me a sense of having helped to accomplish something that I'm proud of. So, join a club, put in some time and effort and tackle it one step at a time. I don't mean to sound like a recruitment poster, but we do outnumber the *******s, and numbers count.

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

this is the url for the whole newletter
http://www.newsdata.com/enernet/fishletter/

Fishaholick

More Information

THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HOME BUILDERS HAS PETITIONED A U.S. DISTRICT Court in Washington, D.C., for permission to submit new evidence in its challenge of the National Marine Fisheries Service's designation of critical habitat for 19 Northwest salmon populations listed under the Endangered Species Act. (Greenwire, Nov. 21) Although the case has already been argued, the judge has not issued a ruling. The builders association wants to add to the record a memo written by Donna Darm, former acting Northwest regional director for NMFS, that says the agency doesn't bother with conducting an economic analysis, as required by the ESA, "we just designate everything as critical ..." (See NewsWatch, Nov.

19) NAHB President Bruce Smith said the memo could lead to eliminating the critical habitat designations altogether.

Fishaholick