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ODFW unveils tight budget By Mark Freeman Hatchery salmon and steelhead programs for the Chetco River will end this spring if Oregon�s legislators do not adopt two key funding measures sought in 2001 by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. In budget documents unveiled this week, ODFW managers say their agency must cut $5.7 million worth of programs over the next two years if the Legislature does not renew the state�s fishing and hunting license fees and if the department does not get $1.1 million in extra general fund money. The cutbacks would be statewide; locally they would make their biggest splash on the Chetco River in the far corner of the south coast and in the agency�s program that helps landowners deal with big-game damage problems in the Rogue Valley. The state would no longer raise and release 150,000 fall chinook salmon smolts and 50,000 winter steelhead smolts annually into the Chetco, cutting deeply into the catch of sport-anglers who flock to Brookings during the salmon and steelhead runs. The hatchery fish account for about a third of both the winter steelhead and fall chinook returns to the Chetco, and the fall chinook are also caught by sport-anglers and commercial fishermen in the ocean. The missing fish would cut the fall chinook catch, which is currently in full swing on the Chetco, by about 2,000 fish a year in the river, said Russ Stauff, an ODFW fish biologist in Gold Beach. Winter steelhead anglers would catch about 1,000 fewer fish, but the impact could be much greater, Stauff said. Currently, the hatchery steelhead are the only steelhead anglers can catch and keep; all wild steelhead must be released. If wild steelhead in Southern Oregon and Northern California are listed as a threatened species next spring, the Endangered Species Act would not allow fishing on a steelhead stream where hatchery fish are not present, Stauff said. "You just won�t fish steelhead in the Chetco," Stauff said. That�s a chilling prospect for Oregon anglers who face losing the opportunity to fish on one of the state�s strongest wild steelhead rivers. Steve Beyerlin, a Gold Beach-based guide and legislative liaison for the Oregon Guides and Packers Association, said he supports a renewal of the current fishing and hunting license costs, but believes the Legislature needs to ante up with general fund money as well. "It�s the state�s responsibility, not just the sportsmen, but it�s the sportsmen who have been footing the bill," Beyerlin said. "The sportsmen aren�t going to let ODFW flush. We�ll be there for them, but we�ll have to get tough." The cutbacks also include cutting in half the money used statewide to assist landowners in reducing deer and elk damage, in trapping and removing damage-causing wildlife, and for similar programs. Locally, about $75,000 a year is spent on such programs, which range from giving cap guns to landowners for scaring away deer to building fences around orchards and vineyards. "It would be a significant dent in our budget," said John Thiebes, the ODFW�s Rogue Watershed manager. "We�d have to cut back quite a few (wildlife) services. But I think it�s a real tragedy on the fisheries� side." The ODFW�s license fees are scheduled to expire next year, but Gov. John Kitzhaber has recommended that they be renewed. If so, then the hatchery program cuts for the Chetco and other streams statewide would be restored, said Bob Mullen, from the ODFW�s regional office in Roseburg. The wildlife damage-control program cuts depend on whether state general fund money helps pay for the program. ODFW managers see it as something that helps all Oregonians and therefore should not be funded through license fees, Mullen said. Brood stock for the Chetco hatchery program are collected annually in the river and trucked 35 miles to the Elk River Hatchery near Port Orford. The fish are spawned and reared there before getting trucked back to the Chetco for release. No future brood-stock collection or egg-taking activities would take place for the Chetco unless funding is restored. Fish on hand as of next July 1 would be released as sub-yearlings or killed immediately. Staff writer Mark Freeman covers the outdoors for the Mail Tribune. Call him at 776-4470, or e-mail him at [email protected] ) Mail Tribune Home | Ottaway Newspapers, Inc. | Dow Jones & Co., Inc. | Privacy | Contact Us Copyright � 2000 Mail Tribune, Inc.