[4] NOAA Fisheries Calls For Less Harvest On Listed Lower Columbia Chinook

NOAA Fisheries wants to cut the U.S. harvest of ESA-listed lower Columbia tule chinook by 14 percent. The recommendation came in a letter from the fish agency to the Pacific Fishery Management Council, which is beginning its annual process to weigh harvest options for the upcoming salmon season on the West Coast.

The change could have major repercussions in upcoming summer fisheries, since the small numbers of listed salmon are mixed in with large numbers of hatchery fish.

The agency said analysis of rebuilding exploitation rates and population viability showed that harvest impacts needed to be reduced on the lower river stocks, and that more conservative measures may be required in the future. They said past harvest impacts may have been underestimated.

The reduction of the lower Columbia tule harvest level--from 49 percent to 42 percent--is just the first step in changing management practices to reduce effects of hatchery fish on spawning grounds, NOAA Fisheries said.

"The community of fishermen and managers should anticipate that there will be a period of transition from the kinds of management we have seen in recent years to some future state that will depend, in large part, on decisions relative to future hatchery production," the agency said in the March 1 letter to the management council.

Existing hatchery programs will either have to be substantially reduced or eliminated, or existing production reprogrammed to reduce straying, and allow fishermen to "differentially harvest hatchery fish," which likely means moving to a mark-selective fishery for fall chinook, the letter said.

That's a topic sure to be the subject of lively debate at the next round of talks with Canadian fish managers. The wild tules make up a tiny portion of the total fall chinook catch managed by the Council, but many are also caught in Canada and the Columbia River. They are mixed in with huge numbers of hatchery fish from the lower Columbia, most released from the Spring Creek Hatchery.

According to the latest data from the Pacific Salmon Commission, in 2005 the Spring Creek hatchery tules made up about 40 percent of the Washington and Oregon sport fishery, and 15 percent of the commercial and sport fishery off Vancouver Island. -B. R.

The following links were mentioned in this story:

NOAA Fisheries letter to PFMC, Mar. 1, 2007

Subscriptions and Feedback
Subscribe to the Fishletter notification e-mail list.
Send e-mail comments to the editor.

THE ARCHIVE :: Previous NW Fishletter issues and supporting documents.

NW Fishletter is produced by Energy NewsData.
Publisher: Cyrus Noë, Editor: Bill Rudolph
Phone: (206) 285-4848 Fax: (206) 281-8035