WFC... again...

not only are they going after the hatcheries on the Columbia (ones in the Mitchell Act), they are now suing because they havent come up with a plan fast enough for the Puget Sound systems that were nailed a little while ago...


looks like the WSC is involved too, i thought they were good a while ago, werent like the WFC, matter of fact i mentioned that not long ago on this very board...

wolf in sheeps clothing is what they are....


http://nwsportsmanmag.com/editors-blog/g...-recovery-plan/

BFD.

The responsible parties need to at least make an attempt to do the job(s), that they are being paid to do.

I smells a mole.

Get the dams off the rivers or flood them with hatchery fish, this is the job they should be doing. The Mitchel act was to suppliment fish because the loos of habitat caused by HOW Many dams. I wish these coalitions would go back to thier blue ribbon trout water, and leave well enough alone.

They sue, the dept ends up footing the bill, for both parties. And look, they are already strapped for cash, lets just make them a little broker, and bitch when they can afford the resources to get things done.. Total [Bleeeeep!]

So long as NOAA doesn't do their job they open themselves up to these process lawsuits.

It really is a great way for NOAA and WDFW to get out of hatchery production without ever having to debate the merits. Look at how much money they have saved by not hiring staff. What they pay to WFC is peanuts. Pencils out well.

Carcassman squarely illustrates the reality of things in his second paragraph.

For those of us that can't break out of this co-dependent relationship we have ongoing with our current resource managers, wait until you see which co-manager ends up being the sole manager.

No mole GLU, just a guy tired of hearing the same old sh!t, while the same old sh!t continues on.

The Puget Sound Chinook recovery plan was issued in 2007, eight years after the fish were ESA listed. While recovery planning is required by the ESA, I don't know that a specific timeframe for those plans is required. PS steelhead were listed in 2007, soon to be nine years ago. I'm not sure what WFC hopes to gain from this latest lawsuit. After all, recovery plans don't recover species; they are guidance documents. Looking at the 10-year goals of the Chinook plan and what has actually been achieved in these nine years doesn't impress me nor make me very hopeful that PS Chinook will actually recover in the foreseeable future.

NMFS can show that the PS steelhead planning process is in the works. The technical recovery team was convened several years ago, and their draft reports will be finalized soon. And then development of the recovery plan will move forward, toward whatever end, but I don't see how it will do any more for steelhead than the Chinook plan has done for Chinook. I think people, including the TRT, are going to be very disappointed to learn that most PS river systems are presently at their wild steelhead carrying capacity, and that it would take a massive shift in freshwater habitat productivity, capacity, and diversity to significantly "recover" some of the former system-wide carrying capacity. There are some exceptions; given the recent very low marine survival rates, a few streams with extremely low spawning escapements are likely severely underseeded and below carrying capacity.

I'm biased of course, but I think this lawsuit is going to do about as much good for steelhead as pissing up a rope.

Sg

You're right, Salmo, that the suit helps recovery as much as pissing up a rope. But, it achieves their goal of eliminating hatchery fish.

To my mind, steelhead will begin to recover when salmon escapements exceed a kilo per square metre and the early returning fish are allowed to return and not get taken in coho and chum fisheries.

Carcassman,

I don't think either WDFW or NMFS have a goal of eliminating hatchery steelhead. The department is wedded to hatcheries when they make sense and when they don't. (Tradition, status quo, bureaucratic inertia, etc.) NMFS has federal trust responsibility to treaty tribes, and hatchery fish are essential to providing treaty harvest whether it's cost effective or not. There's a fair amount of internal friction about the appropriate role(s) of hatcheries.

Wild steelhead recovery needs those marine derived nutrients for sure, and in large amounts. It also needs restoration of habitat complexity, which will take a long time in mid and upper watersheds and will never happen in confined lower basin channels.

Sg

I think the state will get out of hatcheries, at least license funded ones. I think that the license holders won't continue to fund production of fish they can't catch. So general fund, Federal Grants, etc.

May lead to some lawsuits that would be real interesting. ESA vs. treaty rights to dead fish in the boat. Ultimately, that will be what it will have to come down to.

I think, too, that there will need to be some serious triage. In reasonably complete watersheds, we'll have wild fish. If we have compromised the watershed, or critical parts of it, hatchery or mixed.

I agree that this suit will provide WFC and their allies with another tool with which to hammer Puget Sound steelhead hatchery programs to near extinction!

SG -

While WDFW and NOAA may not want to eliminate PS steelhead hatchery programs their collective foot dragging and in attention have worked to the point that such a result is probable. I guess the larger question is once the dust settles would WDFW attempt to restart some sort of replace hatchery programs? I think not.

CM -
To recover salmon populations to the point that we might see anything close to the numbers of spawning salmon that you say recovery needs massive improvements will be needed to support those numbers. Currently the habitat is so trashed that the productivity of those fish that depend on freshwater rearing for any extend to time is severely compromised. Even when the region gets "lucky" with those less dependent on that freshwater habitats (pinks) the rivers have been so changed that those abundant carcasses (rivers like the Snohomish and other rivers have had escapements of between 1 and 2 million) are not retained within the rivers for any length of time. They quickly get flushed out of the rivers or deposited at the upper limits of floodways. Until the river flooding/flushing frequencies are stabilized and channel complexities restored (to capture and retain the carcasses) it will be hard for the ecosystem (at least within the river) to take advantage of those nutrients.

Yes it is hard to understand the foot dragging to produce recovery plans or even to designate critical habitats the harsh reality is that even once complete there will likely be little improvements in the habitat arena. PS steelhead and bull trout will soon be "celebrating" 20 years of ESA listing and the status of those fish suggest that little has been done to improve their lot. In the habitat arena any steelhead recovery plan will provide little addition protection that is not all ready in place with the Chinook and bull trout recovery plans and existing HCPs. In fact the PS steelhead listing decision excluded the one single positive step that could be taken under ESA by excluding the resident form of O. mykiss from the listing.

Any substantial habitat recovery will require both time (decades/centuries) and massive reduction of the human population in the region. Any volunteers to reduce your salmonids impact footprint by leaving the region? While recent actions with Puget Sound steelhead may actually succeed in forcing steelhead anglers to leave the region those support activities that are directing the bulk of habitat past and future impacts are likely to remain.

I'm sadden by what my grandchildren have lost!

Curt

Smalma

Look at South Prairie and the White. The steelhead have responded to the massive pink escapements. I know that much of the responding White is high elevation and protected but SPC sure isn't. Plus, one needs to get away from numbers and look at biomass-even though the numbers are scary then. SPC has had about 300-500K pinks in 15 miles of anadromous zone. A million in the Stilly, Snohomish, or Skagit is a drop in the bucket.

We first have to get the chum, pink, and Chinook numbers up, especially the first two. They will clean the gravel, improving egg-fry, and feed the system. As those numbers increase they will feed the extended rearing species. It will take time.

Plus, especially for coho, the area of primary smelt productivity was the lowland swamps, sloughs, lakes, and beaver ponds. Which won't be restored. Look at the Snow Creek system. The creek itself produced about 10K coho smolts. Crocker Lake, after pike rehab, has kicked out over 30K itself. Want a lot more coho? The data is out there....

As you note, the will isn't.

I hope the State gets out of hatchery steelhead production all together. Tribes take over hatcheries flood production, immune from lawsuits, middle finger to WFC and WSC.

Ask the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and their hatchery manager, who was personally named, if they are immune from lawsuits over hatchery programs.

Did he lose? Lawsuits against the Tribes rarely are successful.

If memory serves, the Tribes themselves can't be sued. In this case, the individuals who were implementing the actions were. Some sort of legal hair-splitting.

So what was the outcome of that lawsuit? All along, I've been assuming hatchery fish are being planted. Is that not the case?

I stand corrected. The tribe itself was not sued. Rather four tribal employees (in their official capacities) were sued for violating the Endangered Species Act by WFC. The tribe agreed to stop stocking Chambers Creek origin steelhead and the federal court ultimately dismissed the case as the tribe received permits from NMFS to operate their programs. Nevertheless, suing the tribal director of river restoration, the tribal hatchery manager, the tribal fisheries manager, and their habitat manager had, more or less, the same effect as suing the tribe, as Carcassman says, some legal hair splitting.

An interesting aspect of coho biology is that they spawn high in a watershed but rear low. The upper habitat, though is not ideal as it is too steep, etc., to rear large numbers of smolts. Yet, we develop the lowlands and floodplains, which is where the smolts primarily would come from. So, by preserving the upper watersheds we will keep coho, just the least productive life histories.

Agree with your conclusion... but your explanation has holes.

The PS Chinook recovery plan was "begun, in earnest" in 2001, less than 2 years following listing. Draft chapters (there were 14 or 15 in total) to the recovery plan were coming into shape as soon as 2003 with most being completed by 2004. All but one (?) were finished in 2005 and "review, editing and adoption" took another 2 years.

This is FAR different than what has transpired with the PS steelhead recovery plan. We don't even have a decent draft to look at and we stand at year 9 past listing. Leadership on this issue by the ESA agencies has been, for the most part, absent. Just within the last year or so has there been substantive "movement" towards getting a plan pulled together.

How bad is this mess? Again, we stand at year 9 and we still have no critical habitat designation for PS steelhead.

FishBear,

As an equal opportunity critic, you probably know I never defend any agency for doing its best to incur the deserved wrath of the public its supposed to serve. My points were that there is no ESA timeline for recovery plans, only that they are to be developed; and recovery plans are guidance documents with nary a single enforceable element; and lastly that the lawsuit will consumer money and human resources while not producing a single additional wild steelhead, which presumably is the intended outcome.

Sg

I think the desired outcome of the lawsuits is the elimination of hatchery fish. They are using the tried and true tactic of suits to delay. Or filibusters, or however one wishes to slow a process.

WFC will get their wish of extensively reduced hatchery production.

I am of the school of thought that if doing the job right and completely is not worth the investment then you don't do it. If NOAA/WDFW/Tribes aren't willing to get this whole package together in a timely manner then just close it all down as it is not worth the cost to them.

A guy I worked for once said "Don't look at what the Legislature says, look at where they spend their money". Those plans are a very low priority.

I don't think population reduction is necessary -- just a major change in how we live. Nobody, least of all the federal government, dares to say this, but everyone involved knows it's true. There is a big effort right now to take down the Snake River dams to help produce more and better Chinook salmon for whales. Are the sport fishermen, commercial fishermen, or the tribes supporting this? Why was a new car dealership just allowed to be built in the Stillaguamsh. It seems that habitat loss and degradation continues without opposition from any fishing groups. I wish that WFC would ask for a moratorium on development, rather than on hatcheries, until there is a real commitment to salmon and steelhead recovery. And, I wish that fishing groups would demand the same.

Everything we do costs money. Money is spent on what we value, or need. Unfortunately, natural resources, especially to the politicos, are a luxury item.

Back in 2014 when WFC was invited to testify in front of the Senate NR committee, they made it very clear that they believe the habitat is fine. Although I share your same desire for what WFC could be doing to actually make a difference, they don't see development or habitat quality as a limiting factor.

All they really want is a complete cessation of hatchery production in the PNW; people who aren't on board with their idealism need to start accepting this reality.

I accept the reality of what they want, but their assumption of good habitat does not square with available information, such as the "properly functioning conditions" developed by NMFS 20 years ago. If their key assumption is wrong, it follows that their conclusion is not supported.

Complete cessation of hatchery production would be devastating not only for fisheries but also for components of the ecosystem that depend on salmon, such as killer whales. There may not be very many fans of marine mammals on this board, but it can't be denied that further loss of salmon would hurt whale and seal populations. I don't see this point often raised in the hatchery discussion, and I think it should be.

The Feds designated Critical Habitat for the listed Puget Sound Steelhead today...

Here's a little light reading:

https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2016-02-24/pdf/2016-03409.pdf

Fish on...

Todd

I think my head just exploded.

Maps were informative, though.

Cliff notes?

The tribes have objected to (through threat of further cooperation) to having ANY tribal lands designated as "Critical Habitat".

The tribes have stated in letters and meetings that designation of Indian lands as critical habitat will undermine long-term working relationships and reduce the capacity of tribes to participate at current levels in the many and varied forums addressing ecosystem management and conservation of fisheries resources.

The true definition of "Co-manager". We do what we like, when we like and the way we like. if you don't like, sue us. (oh ya, you don't have the money and resources.

If conservation was their goal, as the claim as "First Conservationists" then they would lead the way in showing the rest of us how land and fisheries should be managed. If.

I remember attending the World's Fair in Spokane. It was about "the Environment". In the Russian pavilion they justified raping and pillage the countryside because they needed to build the economy...