[3] US Wants Canadians To Develop Mark-Selective Chinook Fishery

The contentious issue of mark-selective fisheries came up in the February talks between U.S. and Canadian members of the Pacific Salmon Commission. U.S. Commissioner Larry Rutter, a NMFS policy analyst, told NW Fishletter that the U.S. has asked Canada to consider a mark-selective harvest regime for its West Coast Vancouver Island (WCVI) fisheries. He said sportfishers in that area alone catch 30,000 to 50,000 chinook annually, with commercial catches making up another two-thirds of the total annual catch.

Canadians have shifted the timing of their commercial season off Vancouver Island to early spring to reduce impacts on their own weak chinook and coho stocks, Rutter said. That change in timing has increased Canadian impacts on lower Columbia tules, whose wild component is listed for protection under the ESA, but has lowered their impact on Snake River fall chinook, another listed stock, which shows up later in the season.

By changing to a fishery that keeps only hatchery fish with a clipped fin, managers say U.S. and Canadian ocean fisheries would be able to boost catches while letting more listed fish by.

To aid such a change, initial discussion has been taking place to provide both countries with more hatchery tules to catch by increasing production by up to 20 million more fish in the lower Columbia by using net pen facilities near Astoria.

WDFW's Guy Norman said the area now produces about 24 million smolts a year, with the upriver Spring Creek hatchery adding another 15 million. Ten years ago, before budget cuts, Norman said the lower river produced 30 million more smolts than it does now.

But NOAA Fisheries policymakers are concerned that there is already too much straying of hatchery fall chinook on spawning grounds of ESA chinook in the lower Columbia. Norman said some areas where net pens now produce fish for harvest opportunities in the lower river would have to be analyzed for future use. He also said that weirs might have to be built at the mouth of some rivers to keep hatchery strays off spawning grounds.

Rutter said the Canadians haven't responded yet, but have traditionally been very skeptical of mark-selective fisheries, even though they have instituted one for coho off WCVI, because of issues over coded-wire tags (CWT).

The huge CWT database that was developed to determine how much different fisheries in each country were responsible for catches of major stocks was based on identifying coded-wire-tagged fish because each had a clipped fin--the same fin clipped at hatcheries to identify a fish as mild, not wild.

Tribal fishers in Puget Sound have reluctantly supported marked fisheries programs, but Columbia River tribes are still adamantly opposed to the strategy.

An expert panel put together by the Pacific Salmon Commission produced a report in November 2005 that examined many of the difficulties associated with switching over from the CWT regime to a genetics-based ID system.

With more cooperation between the two countries, Rutter said, the DNA analysis is getting better all the time. It initially created quite a flap a few years ago, when a preliminary report on the DNA analysis of fish caught off Vancouver Island showed a fair number of ESA-listed upper Columbia spring chinook harvested there, a fact not previously known by managers. But that turned out to be a mistake, Rutter said, because later analysis showed the fish in question were found to be summer chinook, a stock not listed for protection.

But harvests off the Washington coast and around the Columbia estuary seem destined for a mark-selective future, whether Canadians eventually change over or not.

WDFW's Norman said ESA concerns over lower Columbia wild stocks are driving management talks now. He said the potential for boosting production for ocean and Buoy 10 fisheries with net pen products is going to be thoroughly assessed through the 'All-H' Analyzer, a computer tool that examines different combinations of harvest rates on wild and hatchery stocks and interactions between hatchery and wild fish on spawning grounds.

"Frankly," said Norman, "we need fish to fuel our own fisheries." -B. R.

The following links were mentioned in this story:

NW Fishletter 205, November 18, 2005

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