Document text
Chinook runs taken off the hook Fisheries agency ends species status debate By MARK FREEMAN Wild chinook salmon runs in Southern Oregon and Northern California will not gain threatened species status, avoiding sport-fishing bans in parts of the Rogue River and other area streams. Thursday's announcement by the National Marine Fisheries Service closes the books on almost a decade of debate on which Southern Oregon salmon and steelhead deserve Endangered Species Act protections. Federal biologists earlier proposed listing all wild chinook from Port Orford to San Francisco Bay as a single threatened species. Amid heavy pressure from Oregon salmon managers, the agency has instead broken off chinook in the Rogue and other nearby streams as a separate species, or Evolutionarily Significant Unit, not meriting threatened status. Had the chinook been considered threatened, massive cutbacks in salmon fishing would have ensued -- likely including a ban on all sport angling for fall chinook in the Rogue River, said Jim Martin, assistant director of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and one of the architects of Oregon's counter-proposal. "God, it's great to have good news news for a change," Martin said. "The average fisherman and the average fishing guide on the Rogue will never understand how close we came to a huge train wreck on this," Martin said. But wild-fish advocate Rich Nawa in Cave Junction differs. "It's good news for the loggers, fishermen, irrigators, agencies that produce hatchery fish and others who have caused the decline of salmon," says Nawa, of the Siskiyou Regional Education Project. "They will not have their actions challenged in court." Nawa said the decision ignores depleted chinook runs in small coastal streams like Hunter and Euchre creeks in Southern Oregon. Fish managers prefer to manage stronger chinook stocks for fishing than protect weaker stocks in smaller streams, Nawa said. "We have these smaller watersheds that will likely disappear," Nawa said. "I don't see how you can say that's good news," Nawa said. Thursday's news comes six months after the federal government delayed a final decision on the fall chinook listings to consider data and arguments supplied by the state. Oregon had argued that chinook from the Klamath River north are stronger stocks of fish that act differently enough and live in such different habitats that they should not be clumped with the weaker stocks farther south. Oregon's plan calls for splitting the species at the Klamath River, Martin said. NMFS biologists concurred, and Thursday declared threatened status on the chinook from Northern California's Eel River south to San Francisco Bay. "We hope this decision will become a model for scientific cooperation in the future," ODFW Director Jim Greer said. Thursday's announcement is the last involving wild sea-going salmon and steelhead stocks in Northern California and Southern Oregon, after almost a decade of debate on applying the Endangered Species Act to salmon. The push for listings first came from a 1991 American Fisheries Society report identifying the status of 214 Northwest salmon runs. Groups such as the Siskiyou Project spearheaded ESA petitions on the the Illinois River's wild steelhead in 1992, eventually leading to a full review of all Northwest wild salmon, steelhead and cutthroat trout. In Southern Oregon and Northern California, only wild coho salmon are listed as threatened. Wild steelhead are deemed a "candidate" species for future protection. Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA