http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/opb/news.newsmain?action=article&ARTICLE_ID=642470
OPB News
Salmon and Steelhead Listing Review
Due Friday
5/24/04
By Ley Garnett
PORTLAND, OR
2004-05-24 (Oregon Considered) - On Friday the
federal government will release the results of a
court ordered review of 26 stocks of Northwest
salmon and steelhead that are listed under the
Endangered Species law.
Officials with NOAA Fisheries say they are
unlikely to remove more than one of the 26 species
from the list as a result of the study. But
renowned fisheries scientists are nevertheless
worried about the effect of the review.
NOAA Fisheries is conducting this review to comply
with a 2001 ruling by U.S. District Judge Michael
Hogan. In that ruling Hogan determined that the
federal government combined hatchery produced
salmon with wild Oregon Coastal Coho when it put
the Coho on the threatened species list.
Hogan wrote that the government had to count the
ample numbers of hatchery Coho along with wild
fish when considering the health of the run. To
the dismay of conservation groups, NOAA Fisheries
declined to appeal the decision.
Russell Lande: What seems to us to be basically a
scientific issue has been sort of co-opted by the
legal system and politics and policy.
Russell Lande is a professor at the University of
California-San Diego and serves on a salmon
advisory panel to NOAA Fisheries. He says the
panel's analysis of the issue was censored until
it was recently published in the journal Science.
He says there's no way to equate the value of
hatchery fish with wild fish.
Russell Lande: You don't have to be a salmon
biologist to understand quite clearly that
artificial production will not help to maintain a
self-sustaining wild population unless the habitat
is in a sufficiently good condition.
But NOAA Fisheries regional director Bob Lohn says
Judge Hogan's order forces the review of the 26
stocks of Northwest salmon and steelhead that are
protected by the Endangered Species Law.
Bob Lohn: With very few exceptions, all of those
have hatchery fish that are present. The
difference among them is the degree to which
hatchery operations are integrated in a way that
supports the naturally spawning runs or at least
operated in a way that they don't cause a
detriment.
Lohn says he expects all but one of the 26 species
to remain on the list for now.
Bob Lohn: This is an active scientific debate and
secondly there is a great deal of uncertainty.
Much of what we need to know about the potential
effects of hatcheries still requires additional
scientific work.
But veteran fisheries scientist Jim Lichatowich
says this review amounts to nothing more than
turning back the clock.
Jim Lichatowich: It's not really something new.
It's the return to something old that has been
shown to not work.
Lichatowich served on former Governor Kitzhaber's
advisory panel for the Oregon Plan for Salmon,
which was formed to manage Oregon Coastal Coho. He
fears the review will eventually lead to
de-listing many of the salmon and steelhead
stocks, even if it doesn't happen right away.
Jim Lichatowich: This policy in terms of counting
hatchery fish to me is an attempt to go back to
the old management model and to shore it up to
protect the interests that are served by it and
that is the continued development at the expense
of habitat.
Lichatowich says what comes out of NOAA Fisheries'
review Friday may be innocuous on the surface. But
he says he expects property rights activists to
file a new complaint with Judge Hogan charging
that his court order was not followed. Then the
judge could himself remove salmon and steelhead
from Endangered Species protection.
