[7] NMFS Announces New ESA Hatchery Policy, Stock Status
The National Marine Fisheries Service announced today that it will list lower Columbia River coho as a threatened species, but all other previously listed stocks on the West Coast will remain under ESA protection for the foreseeable future. The new policy keeps the status of 14 of the 16 listed stocks unchanged from their prior status, but the central California coast coho population was downgraded from threatened to endangered status.
"This policy reinforces our commitment to protect naturally spawning salmon and their ecosystem," said retired Navy Vice Admiral Conrad C. Lautenbacher, Jr., Ph.D., under secretary of Commerce for oceans and atmosphere and NOAA administrator. "A properly managed hatchery program can provide a great boost to natural populations of fish and we intend to use this as a key component of our overall salmon recovery efforts which, along with favorable ocean conditions, have contributed to record returns over the last few years."
The new determinations have added more than 130 hatchery stocks for protection to listed ESUs [Evolutionarily Significant Units] to satisfy a court ruling (Alsea Valley Alliance vs. NMFS) that tossed NMFS' listing of Oregon coastal coho a few years ago because the agency didn't offer the same ESA protection to the hatchery component of the listed ESU as it did to the wild portion. Now NMFS says the hatchery stocks that are similar to wild listed populations will be listed as well, but will be exempt from take restrictions if they have been marked.
The agency said it needs another six months to decide whether the coastal coho should remain listed. A recent study by Oregon state biologists said the stock was healthy. NMFS also said it needs more time to reach a final decision on 10 listed steelhead stocks. At issue, is whether to include the resident steelhead populations, rainbow trout, as part of the steelhead ESUs.
Russell Brooks of the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represented plaintiffs in the Alsea Valley case, has ongoing litigation against NMFS over the rainbow trout issue. He maintains that there is no way for the fisheries service to determine the genetic difference between a seagoing steelhead from resident hatchery rainbow, and when all are counted, no populations should be listed.
He told NW Fishletter that his group will file another lawsuit in a few days to force NMFS to comply with the spirit of the Alsea Valley decision. "It's rocket science only if you're trying to get around what the court said," Brooks said.
NMFS policymakers say that the listing determinations recognize that the long-term health of the fish populations depends on more than just large numbers of fish, but also on productivity, genetic diversity, and geographic distribution.
But Brooks says the agency's admitted focus on the conservation of wild fish and allowable harvest of surplus hatchery fish in that same ESU still violates the Sept. 2001 ruling by Oregon District Court judge Michael Hogan. -B. R.
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