[4] Groups File Suit To Reduce Harvest Of ESA Chinook In Puget Sound
Several Northwest conservation groups who have already tried to reduce the harvest of ESA-listed chinook by going to court, filed another action this week that focuses on Puget Sound. They say the Sound's harvest management plan approved by NOAA Fisheries is illegal because it allows too much fishing for some stocks to recover.
"NOAA Fisheries acknowledges that these harvest rates are too high for the salmon to recover," said Gary Loomis, president of the Salmon Spawning and Recovery Alliance, in an Oct. 10 press release, "but it approved the harvest plan, anyway. That's a violation of their responsibility under the ESA."
The suit charges that NOAA Fisheries and the US Fish and Wildlife Service are not basing their management of the salmon harvest on the correct abundance criteria necessary for the recovery of the Puget Sound stocks. "In fact," says the complaint, "the NMFS-derived viable thresholds are an order of magnitude lower than the TRT's [Technical Management Team] abundance ranges for the same populations, and are lower than the RMP's [Resource Management Plan] upper management thresholds. As a result, the NMFS viable thresholds tolerate even higher harvest rates and lower escapement than do the RMP upper management thresholds."
Simply put, says Seattle attorney Svend Brandt-Erichsen, the TRT numbers are based on what the team considers necessary for the stocks to be sustainable over the next 100 years, while the NMFS harvest rates are based on current population numbers supported by existing habitat--about 10 percent of the numbers needed for viability.
Brandt-Erichsen said after conferring with NMFS and staff from the Shared Strategy process that has developed the recovery plan for Puget Sound, the philosophy of the current harvest plan is based on a simple notion that if more fish would get back to the spawning grounds than now return, they will be wasted because the current habitat can't handle any more. "We don't think their science is all that good," said Brandt-Erichsen.
The complaint also charges that overall harvest levels of Puget Sound chinook are "much higher" that NMFS predicted because of significant changes in the timing of the Canadian fisheries. It points to an August 2006 report from the Pacific Salmon Commission that acknowledges this shift (see NW Fishletter 219).
The groups say their litigation shouldn't affect tribal fishing in the Sound at all. "We don't see any necessary conflict between treaty fishing rights and reducing the impact of harvest," said Kurt Beardslee, executive director of Washington Trout, one of the plaintiff groups. "But NOAA does have the ability and responsibility to regulate non-tribal fisheries to avoid jeopardizing chinook recovery." The Portland-based Native Fish Society has also joined the action against the feds.
In other harvest news, Brandt-Erichsen said the Salmon Spawning & Recovery Alliance has filed its motion in the US Court of International Trade that claims the US Customs Service has ignored its obligations under the ESA by allowing both sports fishermen and commercial shippers to bring ESA-listed chinook born in the US, but caught in Canada, back across the border. The ESA prohibits the import of endangered animals.
The motion argues that by allowing the import of ESA-listed fish, government agencies are facilitating the killing of listed salmon. "Defendants do not appear to have ever evaluated their obligation and ability to enforce the prohibition against imports of threatened salmon," argue the plaintiffs, who said the feds mustered a one-page response after being presented with a detailed description of the problem that tried to pass the buck from Customs to NMFS.
The same groups also sued the federal government to force reconsultation with Canadians over the interception of ESA-listed, US bound stocks. But a federal judge in Seattle ruled that they did not have standing because his court didn't have the authority to get Canadians to change their harvest regime. Attorney Brandt-Erichsen said its likely that his clients will appeal that decision. -B. R.
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