[3] Puget Sound Steelhead Added To ESA List
Federal fish officials announced earlier this month that Puget Sound steelhead stocks should be added to a long list of Northwest stocks for protection under the ESA, joining local chinook, some chum and bull trout from Sound watersheds.
NOAA Fisheries announced the "threatened" listing for steelhead, the seagoing relatives of rainbow trout, after studying a listing petition filed by retired WDFW staffer Sam Wright. Wright argued that the fish needed protection because they had been declining since 1996 when the feds had last taken a serious look and judged their condition did not warrant a listing.
Scientists with NOAA's biological review team [BRT] judged that the overall viability of the Sound stocks was at high risk because of declining productivity and abundance, with a more moderate risk associated with reduced spatial complexity.
The new listing includes steelhead from Hood Canal and the eastern half of the Strait of Juan de Fuca, along with two winter-run hatchery stocks--the Green River natural and Hamma Hamma River.
With the local chinook already listed, and a recovery plan for them recently approved, NOAA Fisheries regional administrator Bob Lohn said the region had already provided a solid foundation for recovering the steelhead.
"We'll continue to work with Shared Strategy, the tribes, Puget Sound Partnership, the state and others to assure that any additional effort needed to specifically benefit steelhead is included as part of a salmon recovery plan," said Lohn.
Lohn praised WDFW and tribes for their ongoing effort to develop a new state-wide strategy for managing steelhead. But that effort, seen by many as a way for the state to head off another ESA listing, didn't accomplish its goal.
The feds said that current efforts to protect steelhead aren't enough to mitigate the factors adversely affecting the stocks and reduce extinction risk.
After the listing announcement, WDFW director Jeff Koenings tried to remain optimistic, and issued a statement that pointed out the feds had not identified current fisheries as a risk to wild steelhead stocks in Puget Sound.
For years, only hatchery steelhead have been allowed to be kept by recreational anglers, a popular and mostly wintertime fishery the state says generates millions for the state economy.
The state's own draft steelhead report estimates that in Puget Sound and the Strait alone, the hatchery-based steelhead fishery generated about $26 million (2001 dollars), similar to the economic benefits from the coastal fishery, while the Columbia Basin steelhead fishery generated nearly $138 million--that's nearly $2,000 per steelhead caught.
Koenings said that the catch of wild steelhead has dropped to less than one percent of the total run since the mid-1990s (down from about 26 percent in the mid-1980s.) And he said hatchery practices have been "intensively reviewed" to make sure they are consistent with recovery goals.
However, the federal scientists are skeptical about the state's claim that hatchery fish return to rivers so much earlier than wild stocks that there is little opportunity for interaction with them. Studies have shown that the homogenized hatchery fish used in the Sound don't spawn well in the wild, and even the state admits they can reduce fitness if they spawn with wild stocks.
The feds did acknowledge that both recreational and tribal harvests have been substantially reduced in recent years, but they didn't include most hatchery stocks in the listing because the state uses only two sources of broodstock to satisfy about 70 percent of artificial production needs at steelhead hatcheries in Western Washington. The two stocks come from Chambers Creek in southern Puget Sound (winter) and Skamania River (summer).
The BRT also found a moderate risk to life-history diversity of the wild steelhead populations because of potential threats from hatchery and harvest practices in Puget Sound. The state's own report tends to agree.
Some southern British Columbia steelhead stocks have suffered similar declines in recent years, unlike many coastal and Columbia Basin steelhead stocks, which rebounded when ocean conditions improved around 1999.
But ocean conditions took a turn for the worse in 2003. By the summer of 2004, Canadian scientists found that the waters west of Vancouver Island were the warmest in the past 45 years.
Bruce Ward, a researcher with BC's Ministry of the Environment who has studied steelhead on northeastern Vancouver Island's Keogh River since 1975, presented a report at a fisheries conference last year that chronicled significant declines in BC steelhead that mirror the decline in Puget Sound stocks.
But the Canadians' say that the variation in steelhead recruitment is due mainly to climate--with high mortality for young steelhead when they hit the ocean. However, they did record one note of optimism --in 2006, steelhead numbers seemed to be headed upward again, for the time being, anyway.
Wild steelhead stocks in the Columbia Basin, even those in upper Columbia and Snake rivers, where they must pass eight or nine federal dams, have shown better return rates than Puget Sound fish in recent years--a fact noted in WDFW's own management review, which also attributes poor ocean conditions near their ocean entry point as a likely factor in their decline.
Canadian scientist Ward, who peer-reviewed the BRT findings for NOAA Fisheries, suggested in his comments to the agency that recent periods of increased drought and the frequency of fall and winter storm events may also have contributed to a decline in freshwater productivity of the steelhead stocks.
But Ward observed that recent events and ocean conditions may still be the key factor in the viability of the Puget Sound ESU--that the high mortality for juvenile steelhead once they enter the ocean likely plays a much larger role in the determination of adult numbers than adverse affects from out-of-basin hatchery stocks, predation by marine mammals, or degradation of water quality and habitat.
Federal officials shared the podium with Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire when she signed the new legislation May 7 to clean up Puget Sound waters and save its fish. The habitat-focused effort is expected to cost many billions (See NW Fishletter 230).
Speaking of the new effort to save the Sound, Gregoire said, "Today, it looks beautiful on the surface but beneath that surface, it is sick and in some places dying. Indeed, today we've heard news of another endangered species listing -- this one for our Puget Sound steelhead. It's time to act."
To create a better home for steelhead so they can take advantage of it when ocean conditions improve, is about all we can do, one federal scientist told NW Fishletter. He credited the positive responses of Columbia River steelhead from improved offshore conditions a sign that their spawning and rearing habitats are better than those found in Puget Sound tributaries.
However, WDFW officials say that most Sound steelhead stocks are trending upward again and are better shape than they were in 1996, the last time the feds looked at them and decided not to list.
In comments, they sent to NOAA Fisheries last year, including updated escapement numbers and projected returns for 2006, state biologists said it looked like marine survival rates were improving again, and the fish should get an added boost from new restoration actions now underway.
They recommended that the feds identify the Puget Sound ESU as a "Species of Concern" and re-examine it in five years. But NOAA Fisheries said there is no regulatory or funding certainty for implementation of hatchery reforms--or even what those reforms may be. They did say if WDFW completes its steelhead management plan within the next year, "we anticipate considering it in developing our final listing determination."
But the federal agency barely mentioned the marine survival issue in its May 11 Federal Register notice--saying simply that information was not available to evaluate trends in marine survival for any of the Sound's steelhead populations. -B. R.
The following links were mentioned in this story:
Petition To List Puget Sound Steelhead
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