Hatchery Salmon Equal Wild Fish Under Bush Proposal

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, May 31, 2004 (ENS) - Salmon raised in concrete hatchery tanks will be considered when determining whether wild salmon should be protected under the Endangered Species Act, federal officials said Friday. The proposal is a major change to federal policy and is likely to spark additional litigation in the battle to protect wild salmon and steelhead throughout the Pacific Northwest.

Twenty-six Pacific salmon and steelhead populations are listed under the Endangered Species Act - the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) National Marine Fisheries Service is responsible for their protection under the law.

NOAA officials said the proposal does little to change efforts to conservation wild salmon and their habitat.

"This hatchery policy will re-enforce NOAA's commitment to protect naturally spawning salmon and their ecosystems," said NOAA Administrator Conrad Lautenbacher.

The proposal comes in response to a 2001 court decision that invalidated the listing of Oregon coast coho salmon as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act because NOAA Fisheries failed to include hatchery fish in its assessment of the species' population.

The Bush administration declined to challenge that ruling and instead agreed to review its hatchery policy for all 26 listings of salmon and steelhead.

Wild salmon are considered by many to be an irreplaceable icon of the Pacific Northwest. (Photo courtesy Columbia & Snake Rivers Campaign)

The assessment recommended adding another population - the Lower Columbia coho salmon - to the Endangered Species Act, listing the population as threatened.

But that has annoyed the property rights advocates who pushed for the inclusion of hatchery fish in Endangered Species Act listing decisions.

"There is absolutely no legal basis on which NOAA can count the millions of hatchery salmon and steelhead in fish runs throughout the West and, at the same time, somehow keep these ubiquitous fish listed as endangered," said Russ Brooks, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF). "Under the Endangered Species Act, the administration can not have it both ways."

The PLF, a nonprofit law firm that frequently battles against the Endangered Species Act, brought the original case to court in 2001 on behalf of an Oregon based private property rights group.

The decision flies in the face of the court ruling, Brooks said, and is a political attempt to accommodate both sides of the issue.

"We will continue working with NOAA during the comment period and we hope they will recognize their serious mistake, but if they do not, they can expect to see us right back in court," said Brooks.

The battle over Endangered Species Act protection for Pacific Northwest salmon reflects the major threat to salmon and steelhead all along the West Coast - habitat loss from land development, hydroelectric power and extractive resource activities.

Federal and state governments spend more than $1 billion annually to protect and restore salmon - and to help them navigate scores of dams on Western rivers. (Photo by Doug Thiele courtesy U.S. Army Corps of Engineers)

The legal challenges to listing of salmon populations have come primarily from developers and logging companies in the Northwest.

Conservationists and fishing groups fear without Endangered Species Act protection the future is bleak for wild salmon and steelhead.

They contend the hatchery policy is part of an effort by the Bush administration to undermine federal protection of salmon and steelhead in order to appease industry groups.

"The Bush administration is simply trying to redefine reality," added Glen Spain of Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, a major fishing industry association. "This plan turns conservation biology on its head."

"Wild salmon indicate the health of our rivers and streams," added Jeremy Brown, Washington Trollers Association, a fishing industry group. "By counting hatchery and wild fish together, we are masking the primary problem - our Columbia, Snake and coastal rivers are in trouble."

The Bush proposal has also drawn criticism from the scientific advisory panel convened by NOAA Fisheries to examine the agency's salmon recovery program.

The committee took the unprecedented step in March of publishing its concerns in the journal "Science" after the Bush administration said its conclusions went beyond science and into policy and were inappropriate for official reports.

Advocates want to see large, healthy populations of wild salmon and steelhead like this chinook salmon. (Photo by Jo Keller courtesy U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)

The panel contends there is ample science to support the agency's past position that hatchery fish should not be included in population counts used to determine the status of wild salmon and steelhead stocks.

Hatchery spawned fish can harm wild fish by introducing disease and altering the unique genetic makeup of the species.

In addition, fish bred and fed in hatcheries are often larger than their wild cousins, grow quickly, and compete with them during early life stages in freshwater and estuaries.

"Rather than listening to the agency's own scientists and developing a policy that is based on science and works on the ground, they have decided to do what was politically expedient," said Liz Hamilton, executive director of the Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association. "This is just another way for the agency to avoid doing the difficult work - the protection and restoration of clean healthy rivers."

Both the proposed listing determinations and the draft hatchery policy will be published in the Federal Register early next month and will be open for public comment for 90 days.