Contact: Brian Gorman FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
(206) 526-6613 11/9/95
The Commerce Department's National Marine Fisheries Service today agreed with recommendations by the National Academy of Sciences for the long-term protection of Pacific Northwest salmon, saying the NAS proposals confirm the scientific soundness of the service's own conservation program.
"The recommendations of the Academy reflect the basic elements of our program for recovering salmon and steelhead, and confirm that it rests on a solid scientific foundation," said William Stelle, the regional director for the National Marine Fisheries Service in Seattle.
"We have said all along that we are committed to decision making based on good science, and this report confirms that commitment."
The 388-page NAS report, the result of a Congressional request in 1992, focuses on the population status, habitat and environmental requirements of all seven salmon or salmon-related species in Washington, Oregon, Idaho and California. The species are chinook, chum, coho, pink and sockeye salmon, and steelhead and sea run cutthroat trout.
The report says Pacific salmon have disappeared from about 40 percent of their historical breeding ranges over the past 100 years and many of their remaining populations are severely reduced.
The recommendations of the Academy mirror the fisheries service's approach in a number of important respects, including:
o Establishing an independent scientific board to advise the
region. Both the fisheries service and the Northwest Power Planning
Council are in the process of establishing an independent board that
will advise them and the region on recovery-related efforts.
o Focusing salmon conservation efforts on local salmon
populations. The NAS report says that protecting local populations
is essential if salmon are to survive. The report also says that
the fisheries service's concept of dividing salmon stocks into
separate, discrete population clusters called evolutionarily
significant units "provides a consistent, scientifically based
framework" for applying the Endangered Species Act to salmon
populations.
o Continuing to rely on the transportation of juveniles
around the dams by barge while testing methods to improve the
survival rate of the young fish by increasing river water flows and
spilling water (and fish) around the dams as part of a systematic
"adaptive management" approach. This is the approach the fisheries
service adopted in its biological opinion for the federal hydropower
system issued last March.
o Undertaking major reforms in hatchery planning and
management to emphasize the conservation of the genetic diversity of
the wild runs on a watershed-by-watershed basis.The study also recommends significant changes to how commercial, recreational and tribal salmon fishing is managed to ensure that an adequate number of adults make it back upstream to spawn. The report says such "escapement" should be the primary goal of salmon harvest management.
The Academy also emphasizes cooperative watershed planning as an important key to salmon recovery and the focal point for both habitat and hatchery planning.
"The importance the Academy gives to watershed-based restoration efforts reflects the strong emphasis placed by the tribal restoration plan on just such an approach," Stelle noted. "Building and implementing an effective watershed restoration program for the Columbia River Basin is clearly a top priority for all of us, as the tribes themselves concluded, and much work remains to be done on this front."
###Copies of the report are available from the National Academy Press at (202) 624-6242.