the osprey · issue, the osprey is back to covering a variety subjects that wild salmon and...

Katherine P. Ransel, who was Co-Director and then Director of the NWregional office of American Rivers, rep-resented 14 NGOs in the Condit damrelicensing proceeding from Decemberof 1992 until June of 2001. Credit forthe title of this article goes to DavidJames Duncan (Duncan, David James.1997. How to Hope Like A Coho.Portland: Cascadia Times: February, 7-12), and Muhammad Ali, respectively.Footnotes for this article are found onpage 6.

When asked to explainwhy a utility wouldagree to remove a func-tioning hydropowerproject at its own

expense, I had to rout among a raft ofdocuments, some of which were nearly20 years old, to recall the journey fromthe beginning of a relicensing proceed-ing in December of 1992 to the dramaof October 26, 2011, when the damowner, Pacificorp, blew an enormoushole in the bottom of Condit dam on the

White Salmon River, in Washingtonstate. At 125 feet, it is the second high-est dam to have been breached in the

United States.1

That walk down memory lanereminded me that in the seven years

from intervention to the settlementaccords of December of 1999,Pacificorp tried every trick in the bookto avoid its responsibility for the dam-age its facility had visited on the riverand its salmon and steelhead runs. Back then, dam removal had been

mentioned as a possibility for the out-

come of the Condit dam relicensing,but few really took it seriously. In1992, dam removal was consideredradical and something that conserva-tionists dreamed about but had verylittle real hope of achieving. It was notuntil 1995 that the Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission (FERC) issueda policy statement acknowledging thatit had the authority to require removalin a relicensing, authority that it nev-ertheless was loathe to exercise.Moreover, removing high head damsfound in the West is a far cry frombreaching the low head dams found on

the east coast.2 The sediment trappedby Western high head dams like Conditpresented a completely different engi-neering challenge, the greatest ofwhich was managing tons of potential-ly toxic sediment accumulated behindthem. The Columbia River treatytribes, including the Yakama Nationthrough whose ceded lands the riverruns, were the only government bodiesnot only willing to talk about removing

THE OSPrEya Journal Published by the Steelhead Committee

Federation of Fly Fishers

Dedicated to the Preservation of Wild Steelhead • Issue No. 71 • JaNUary 2012

CONDIT DAMREMOVAL

— PAGE 1 —

INFECTIOUSSALMON ANEMIA

— PAGE 7 —

IDAHOUPDATE

— PAGE 10

PUGET SOUNDTHEN & NOW— PAGE 13 —

THOMPSON RTROUBLES

— PAGE 15 —

WILLAPASALMON

— PAGE 18 —

Continued on Page 4

Hope like a Coho, Sting like a BeeThe Condit Dam removal story

by Katherine P. Ransel— Seattle, Washington —

IN THIS

ISSUE:

In 1992, dam removalwas considered radical— something to dreamabout but very littlehope of achieving.

Contributing EditorsPete Soverel • Bill Redman Stan Young • Norm Ploss

William Atlas • Schuyler DunphyScott Hagen Contributors

Katherine P. Ransel • Will Atlas Alexandra Morton • Greg Stahl

Greg Gordon • Ron Nanney

LayoutJim Yuskavitch

Fresh from our well-received special September 2011 British Columbiaissue, The Osprey is back to covering a variety subjects that wildsalmon and steelhead advocates need to know and care about. Ourcover article for this issue is the fascinating background story leadingup to the removal of Condit Dam on the White Salmon River by

Katherine Ransel who, as a stafferwith American Rivers, was integral tothe campaign to remove the dam,which first required convincing con-servationists and bureaucrats alikethat it was actually a real option.A second insider story in this issue

is by Alexandra Morton of theRaincoast Research Society, a regularcontributor to The Osprey, whodetails the discovery and subsequentcover-up of Infectious SalmonAnemia virus in wild salmon inBritish Columbia and the potentialthreat is poses to wild fish recovery.Rounding out this issue are updates

on Puget Sound and Idaho wildsalmon and steelhead issues, a cri-tique of excessive hatchery salmonproduction in Washington’s Willapa basin and a return to the Thompson Riverwith an analysis of its new sport fishing management strategy.As always, I hope this issue of The Osprey will continue to inspire you to standup for wild salmon and steelhead and work for their future.

THE OSPrEy

Letters To The EditorThe Osprey welcomes submissions

and letters to the editor. Submissions may be

made electronically or by mail.

The OspreyP.O. Box 1228

Sisters, OR [email protected](541) 549-8914

The Osprey is a publication of TheFederation of Fly Fishers and is pub-lished three times a year. All materialsare copy protected and require permis-sion prior to reprinting or other use.

The Osprey © 2012

THE OSPREY IS PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER

USING SOY INK

The Federation of Fly Fishers is aunique non-profit organization con-

cerned with sport fishing and fisheriesThe Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) supports con-

servation of all fish in all waters.FFF has a long standing commit-ment to solving fisheries problems atthe grass roots. By charter and inclina-tion, FFF is organized from the bottomup; each of its 360+ clubs, all overNorth America and the world, is aunique and self-directed group. Thegrass roots focus reflects the realitythat most fisheries solutions must comeat that local level.

ChairWill Atlas

EditorJim Yuskavitch

FROM THE PERCH — EDITOR’S MESSAGE

2 JaNUary 2012 THE OSPrEy • ISSUE NO. 71

An Issue for Everyoneby Jim Yuskavitch

Invest in the future of “all fish, all waters,” with amembership in the FFF — a nonprofit organization. Your membership helps make us a

stronger advocate for the sport you love!

Federation of Fly Fishers5237 US Hwy 89 South, Suite 11Livingston, MT 59047-9176

A bright Thompson River steelhead, thefocus of our story beginning on page 15.Photo by Tomas Jirku.

mailto:[email protected]

Another year, anotherangling closure for PugetSound’s storied wintersteelhead fisheries. Whileit no longer comes as a sur-

prise, the announcement that riverssuch as the Skagit, Skykomish andStillaguamish would all be closingFebruary 1st to protect wild steelheadstill feels about as good as a punch inthe gut. Like many anglers in theSeattle area, the Skykomish, Skagitand Sauk are where I learned to lovesteelhead angling. Many of my richestmemories were formed on the banks ofthese rivers and I have been frustratedby the mismanagement of our wildsteelhead stocks by the WashingtonDepartment of Fish and Wildlife(WDFW). In 2007, just six years, or onegeneration of steelhead, after WDFWfinally closed the Skagit andSkykomish to the harvest of wild steel-head, Puget Sound steelhead were list-ed as Threatened under theEndangered Species Act. Fish whoseparents could have been legally killedby sports fisherman were suddenly fartoo precious to allow even relativelylow impact catch and release fisheries.This management by closure, whereby doing nothing until populations areseverely depressed and then closingangling altogether, is a depressingexample of WDFW’s lack of foresight.Eliminating catch-and-release fishing,while other far more harmful impactspersist is farcical and is the outcomeof a department with an inability toinstitute proactive management poli-cies that protect wild fish. Of coursehindsight is 20:20, and it is all too easyto criticize the department for pastactions, but we owe it to the fish to dobetter by respectfully engagingWDFW and expressing our desire tosee wild fish management take prece-dence statewide. While I believe thereis a path to a better future for wild fishwe still have a long way to go.

What is frustratingly clear about thesituation in Puget Sound is that whilemuch of the remaining habitat is slow-ly recovering from a century of log-ging and other abuses, the marineenvironment is currently the primarilylimiting factor for populations of wildsteelhead in Puget Sound. The fact iswe know very little about why themarine survival of wild steelhead hasplummeted in recent years and evenwith quality information, there areonly so many tools available to man-agers to potentially improve survival.

One thing we can do though is reducethe impact of hatcheries on wildsalmon and steelhead. Hatcheries arethe single biggest factor associatedwith the decline of wild salmon andsteelhead that lie within the control ofour state resource managers, andreducing or eliminating hatchery pro-duction throughout the Puget Soundcould potentially go a long waytowards increasing the productivityand survival of wild fish. WDFW has promised to do just that

by establishing Wild SalmonidManagement Zones in each region ofthe state. However simply eliminatingthe release of a single species in awatershed swamped with hatchery fishof other species is only one piece of thepuzzle, a step that all but eliminates

the risk of hatchery introgression intoa wild population of that species butdoes little to prevent the broader eco-logical and disease risks posed byhatchery operations. But change is dif-ficult in a state where hatcheries havebeen such a central part of the fish-eries management mantra for decades.As former WDFW Director BernShanks famously said, a hatchery iswhat you get if you cross a “militarybase with a sacred cow.” When pressedfisheries managers will admit theirconcern over the impact of hatcheries,but what follows is usually an excuseabout the need for hatcheries to create“opportunity” or the fact that hatcheryproduction is made necessary bytreaty obligations to native tribes.However, despite a $50 million statehatchery budget and five decades ofindustrial hatchery supplementation,things are only getting worse. Evenwith hatcheries, steelhead fishing“opportunity” has been reduced to ashort two-month window of angling inPuget Sound. To truly address theeffect of hatcheries in Puget Sound, weneed a sea change in the paradigmsguiding fisheries management in ourstate. We should be prioritizing entireriver basins for protection as WildSalmonid Management Zones for allspecies. With an uncertain future forwild salmon and steelhead, we owe it tothe fish to do everything in our powerto help them recover, and in the case ofhatcheries, it’s time we got out of theirway.

THE OSPrEy • ISSUE NO. 71 JaNUary 2012 3

Wild Salmonid Mgt. Zones best way toprotect wild salmon and steelhead

by Will Atlas— Chair, Steelhead Committee —

Entire river basinsshould be prioritizedfor protection as Wild Salmonid

Management Zonesfor all fish species.

CHAIR’S CORNER

the dam, but also ready to work with usto achieve it.So how did we do it? First, we asked

as many groups as possible from theColumbia Gorge area as well as nation-al organizations to join AmericanRivers (AR) in our intervention. It wasa bit like waving your arms over yourhead to appear larger than you reallyare when encountering a bear.Because it would cost the other organi-zations nothing, it was easy enough forthem to do. Due to the presence of thelarge national organizations, we couldcount hundreds of thousands of peopleas members of “conservation

parties.”3 Smaller organizations basedin the Columbia Gorge ensured thatthe intervention could not rightfully becalled an attempt by outsiders to force

their agenda on the local populace.4

Little did we realize just how radicaldam removal was viewed by the feder-al and state agencies that would beparticipating in the relicensing, andeven by the members of some of theorganizations that composed our coali-tion. Not only did we have to outwit amajor utility with virtually unlimitedresources compared to those of AR,but we had to cajole the agencies con-stantly, bringing them slowly along tothe idea of articulating the words “damremoval,” let alone strategizing with

us on how to bring it about.5

Second, we marshaled the facts infavor of complete restoration of theriver. Built in 1913 near the mouth ofthe White Salmon River, Condit damblocked as much as 40 miles of salmonand steelhead habitat. Formerlyhealthy runs of spring and fallChinook, coho, and summer and wintersteelhead were either extinct or athigh risk of extinction. We coupled thiswith the fact that the White Salmon islow in the Columbia basin, and salmonwould have only one mainstem dam tonegotiate (Bonneville dam), making acompelling case for restoring the fish-ery. Moreover, we noted that the WhiteSalmon River is one of only three fed-erally designated National Wild andScenic Rivers in the state ofWashington. The lower river is part ofthe Columbia Gorge National ScenicArea; the middle river is a federal wildand scenic river; and at the time, the

upper river had been recommendedfor inclusion in the national wild andscenic system (and now is included).The river has always been extremelypopular with white water boaters. Thewhitewater experience ended abruptlyat the reservoir, however, robbingthem of the enjoyment of the remain-ing several miles of the river and theColumbia Gorge National Scenic Area. The next step was the fight for a com-

plete environmental review to explorealternatives to an “as is” relicensing.At the time, we were locked in battlewith FERC over what was known asthe “baseline” issue. The companyassumed it would simply pick up a newlicense with no environmental review,because, after all, from its perspec-tive, nothing was going to change;there would be no impacts from reli-censing the dam if current conditionswere used as the “baseline” fromwhich impacts would be measured. Wehad been fighting in the courts foryears to require the Commission to

assess the impacts of relicensings as ifthe dams had never been built. We alsohad to convince the agencies to requestFERC to include the option of damremoval in the environmental review;most were reluctant even to mention it.Moreover, we had to ensure suffi-

cient numbers of people at the firstpublic hearing to support a damremoval alternative in the environ-mental impact statement (EIS) to let

FERC know that a large segment of thecommunity wanted this option studied.The local Columbia Gorge groups werecentral to this effort and livened up thepublic hearings with fish costumes andpantomimes of dam breaching, withlocal children playing their parts asthe salmon. As the relicensing progressed, we

spent a great deal of effort warding offPacificorp’s attempts to defeat juris-diction; to delay fish passage until“sufficient studies” over “manyyears” showed whether the habitat in


Condit DamContinued from page 1

Continued on next page

After a long, difficult struggle that began in 1992, the Condit Dam on Washington’sWhite Salmon River, was finally removed beginning on October 26, 2011. Photo byTodd Mera

the White Salmon was worthy of beingrepopulated; to mitigate the environ-mental impacts of Condit dam withhabitat projects in other basins (in lieuof fish passage at the Condit facility);and finally, when all else failed, to tryto win approval of a trap and haul facil-ity instead of passage facilitiesenabling the fish to migrate on theirown.

Each strategy required time,research and persuasion to defeat.The jurisdictional challenge in particu-lar was worrisome until we dug up his-torical evidence of logs being sent tomarket via the White Salmon to theColumbia, which proved that the riverhad been subject to use in interstatecommerce. And Pacificorp’s contract-ing Jim Lichatowich to tout the compa-ny’s proposal to study the WhiteSalmon to death and to propose habitatimprovements in other basins was agood “political” move, becauseLichatowich had gained enormousrespect in the fisheries community forhis collaboration on Pacific Salmon at

the Crossroads.6 But none ofPacificorp’s efforts to avoid propermitigation for the damage it caused theriver and the fishery was ultimatelysuccessful.We were thankful that the National

Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) hadmandatory authority to order fish pas-sage and to prescribe the type of fishpassage facility it deemed sufficientfor this dam. Fish passage facilitiesbuilt soon after the dam did not sur-vive the steep canyon gradient of theWhite Salmon for very long; thus, anynew facility, we argued to NMFS, hadto be state of the art and fail-safe. And

NMFS eventually agreed.7

At the same, we were working otherpieces of the legal puzzle to our advan-tage. With the tribes, we had asked theNorthwest Power Planning Council toamend the Columbia Basin Fish andWildlife Plan to include an elementthat called for Condit to be removed.Why? Most people think the Counciland its authorizing legislation have noteeth. But what is not known to thoseunfamiliar with the Federal Power Actis that it requires FERC to act consis-tent with any comprehensive plan thathas been adopted for a waterway.Moreover, the federal courts had ruled

that the Council’s Fish and WildlifePlan is a comprehensive plan for pur-poses of the Federal Power Act.Although the Council did not give usour removal amendment, it did give usour second choice, which was the vir-tual equivalent: it called for the bestbiological option for fish passage in theWhite Salmon River. In the end, theCouncil’s plan, plus the number of localpeople who spoke in favor of studyingdam removal at the public hearing,persuaded FERC to include damremoval as an alternative in the EIS.AR was also working on a case that

had reached the U.S. Supreme Courtfrom Washington state. Decided in

1994, the outcome turned legal author-ity over instream flows on it head,allowing state water quality agenciesinstead of FERC to dictate the amountof flow that would be left instream to

protect fisheries below.8 That outcomewould affect the economics of everysubsequent FERC licensed hydro pro-ject in the country, including theCondit project. Any flow left in theriver instead of run through the tur-bines would reduce generation at theplant, affecting its profitability. Thiswas, if less so than fish passage, still ablow to project economics.Also central to our success were the

monthly meetings that AmericanRivers and the Columbia Basin Fishand Wildlife Authority (CBFWA)arranged to engage the federal andstate resource agencies and investthem in the outcome. Through thesemeetings, we kept the agencies ontrack and exerted subtle psychologicalpressure on them to work with us andthe tribes to, at the very least, not act

in ways that would hinder a removaloutcome. Some were easier to workwith than others. In these meetings,AR also shared the most recent devel-opments in other relicensing proceed-ings around the country whereremoval was on the table to assure theagencies that they were not alone. In addition, American Rivers and

CBFWA created a joint restorationplan for the White Salmon River, whichwas adopted by federal, state and trib-al agencies and the Yakama tribe. Wecreated it to give life to the PowerCouncil’s Basin Plan for the WhiteSalmon to adopt the biologically opti-mal form of fish passage. It evaluatedrestoration opportunities for all of thesalmon and steelhead stocks nativeand then extant in the White SalmonRiver. The restoration plan alsoreviewed various fish passage optionsand demonstrated that dam removalpresented the best option for restora-tion of the river’s fishery. And FERCpointed to the CBFWA/AmericanRivers restoration plan when it con-cluded in the draft environmentalimpact statement (DEIS) that damremoval was the best biological optionfor fish passage. Credit goes toClayton Hawkes, who then worked forCBFWA, for his dedication to writingthe plan and ensuring that all of theresource agencies and tribes approvedit. Perhaps the greatest legacy of therestoration plan will be the tribes’ andfishery agencies’ agreement to letnature and the salmon take their unfet-tered and un-supplemented course

after the dam was removed.9

While FERC found in the DEIS thatdam removal was the best biologicaloption for fish passage, citing our jointrestoration plan, it also concluded thatremoving the dam was cost prohibi-tive. We took the DEIS apart, andengaged experts to help us analyze andpresent its flaws. We asked DennisGathard, who had developed the initialplans for removal of the Elwha Riverdams, to be our engineering expert.His report showed that dam removalcould be accomplished for five timesless than FERC’s estimate. In addi-tion, American Rivers and the YakamaNation introduced a report by PhilMeyer, an expert natural resourceeconomist. Meyer showed that theeconomic benefits of removal out-


Continued from previous page


In the end, FERC wasfinally persuaded toinclude removal ofCondit Dam as analternative in the

Environmental ImpactStatement.


1. Elwha and Glines Canyon dams onthe Elwha River in Washington State,108 and 210 feet high, respectively,were breached in September of 2011,using a very different method of sed-iment management as the environ-mental conditions in the two riversare very different. 2. E.g., the Edwards dam, a mere 24feet high, which was not breached onMaine’s Kennebec River until 1999. 3. The collective name I gave toAmerican Rivers and the organiza-tions I asked to intervene with us inthe relicensing proceeding. Theyincluded American WhitewaterAffiliation, Columbia Gorge AudubonSociety, Columbia Gorge Coalition,Columbia River United, Federationof Fly Fishers, Friends of theColumbia Gorge, Friends of theEarth, the Mountaineers, RiversCouncil of Washington, Sierra Club,Trout Unlimited, Washington Trout,and Washington WildernessCoalition.4. Local residents unhappy with theidea of removing the dam called usoutsiders and troublemakers any-how. 5. And we had to drop one of ouroriginal conservation parties, theWhite Salmon Steelheaders, becauseit publicly opposed reintroduction ofsalmon and steelhead above the dam.Its opposition was ironic becausesteelhead trout had the most habitatto gain from enabling fish to passupstream. 6. Nehlsen, W., J. E. Williams and J.A. Lichatowich. 1991. Pacific salmonat the crossroads: Stocks at riskfrom California, Oregon, Idaho, andWashington. Fisheries 16:2 4-21. Thisreport, much more so than anybefore it, brought public conscious-ness to the dire state of Pacificsalmon. 7. Subsequently, the industry suc-cessfully lobbied for changes to theFederal Power Act that make itmuch more burdensome for NMFS toexercise its fishways authority. 16U.S.C. §823D.8. PUD. No 1 of Jefferson County etal. v. Washington Dept. of Ecology etal., 511 U.S. 700 (1994).

9. The tribes moved hundreds of fallChinook from below to above thedam prior to breach, but this was aone-time effort to save the fish frombeing smothered by the sedimentreleased with the dam’s breach. Asfar as I know, there are no plans tosupplement these stocks or other-wise interfere with natural repopula-tion.10. The Company negotiated an“Agreement in Principle” with theYakama Nation based on allowing itto continue operations until Octoberof 2006 and providing $1 million“fishery enhancement fund” to theNation, among other things. Withthat in hand, the Company began for-mal negotiations with all of the par-ties.11. I have chosen to stop at theremoval agreement. The 11 yearsbetween the agreement and thedam’s breach tell another story, onethat must be left to another day. Insum, delays by FERC in addressingthe settlement, and its opening of anentirely new proceeding in which itallowed new parties to intervene, setthe stage for further delay and gaveheart to a small group of people whohad long-term rental cabins along-side the reservoir to attack the set-tlement. Klickitat and Skamaniacounties also intervened in the newproceeding to fight the settlement.Moreover, regulatory permits need-ed for demolition and breach alsotook years to obtain. After the last ofthem was granted, and appealsexhausted, FERC issued a final damsurrender order on April 21, 2011.From that date forward, theCompany went about implementingthe sanctioned plan for breach andremoval.12. A T-shirt designed by DanielDancer, one of the river’s mostactive advocates, portrays abreached Condit dam and containsthe exhortation: Hope like a Coho. Istill have one of those T-shirts, whichis at least 15-years-old and severelybut beautifully frayed around theneck.

Condit Dam Footnotes

weighed any other fish passage alter-native, having the best overallcost/benefit ratio among all of thealternatives studied by FERC.It was after the introduction of the

expert reports, and FERC’s final envi-ronmental impact statement adoptingNMFS’ prescription for state of the artfish screens and ladders, that settle-ment negotiations began. AmericanRivers proposed the central thesis ofthe agreement to the Yakama Nation(which was in closed discussions withPacificorp), viz., to allow PacifiCorp tocontinue to operate Condit dam forseveral years to generate funds to off-

set the cost of removal.10 This propo-sition, together with Gathard’s signifi-cantly lower estimate of dam removalcosts compared to those of fish pas-sage, had brought the company to thetable. The formal negotiations began with

the engineering challenges of damremoval and sediment management,and Dennis Gathard was central tothem. We settled on a breach approachthat provided for rapid sedimentremoval and thus quick recovery of theriver. This approach also significantlyreduced costs over other alternativesand promised to reduce the amount oftime that fish would be exposed to sed-iment.We then moved to the legal negotia-

tions, which proved to be much moredifficult and time consuming. Finally,in December of 1999, the partiesannounced their agreement at a pressconference in Portland, Oregon. Andwhile it was a fine day indeed, it was tobe another 12 years before the dam

was finally breached.11

It was worth the wait. Watching theriver recreate its canyon and naturalflow pattern in as few as two hours wasone of the most dramatic ends to alegal proceeding that I have ever expe-rienced. And seeing the joy on thefaces of so many people who had“hoped like a coho” for that day waswell worth all of the work it took to get

there. 12


Alexandra Morton, of the RaincoastResearch Society, in Simoon Sound,BC, is a leading advocate of salmonconservation, especially battlingAtlantic salmon farms and the dis-eases to which they expose wildsalmon. The website is www.raincoas-tresearch.org.

On a Sunday night lastOctober, a friend and col-league, Dr. Rick Routledgeof Simon FraserUniversity, called to say

two Rivers Inlet sockeye smolts hadtested positive for European strainInfectious Salmon Anemia virus(ISAv). The news hit like a ton ofbricks. I had written to one Minister ofFisheries after the next asking theyclose the border to Atlantic salmoneggs to protect BC salmon from ISAv.I was told not to worry, there were“measures in place to deal with notonly ISA, but all fish diseases…”Rick’s research is on the 99% declinein Rivers Inlet sockeye.

Infectious Salmon Anemia virus(ISAv) is a fish influenza. Since appear-ing in Norway in 1984, ISA virus hasturned up everywhere Atlantic salmonare farmed including eastern Canada,Scotland, Ireland and the FaroeIslands. When ISAv appeared in Chile,killing 70% of the salmon in farms, sci-entists discovered the virus came withAtlantic salmon eggs. The strain wastraced to Norway. The salmon farmingindustry unsuccessfully attempted tocharge Dr. Are Nylund, University ofBergen with “Scientific Misconduct.” The day after Rick’s call, I headed forthe Fraser River, where people weretelling me thousands of salmon werefloating down the river dead – eggs stillinside them. I sent samples to Dr.Kibenge, head of the international ref-erence lab for ISA virus in PrinceEdward Island. Three came back pos-

itive: a coho, a 25-pound white Chinookand a silver-bright chum salmon. Fourspecies — 600km apart — two genera-tions — ISAv positive. I was thunder-struck.Simon Fraser University held a pressconference to alert other scientists somore testing could be done. Wherewas this coming from, and what is itdoing to wild salmon? Given the histo-ry of the disease, it was natural to turnto the 92% Norwegian-owned salmonfarming industry currently raisingmillions of Atlantic salmon alongalmost every south coast BC wildsalmon migration route.

An international argument at thehighest levels of government ensued.Canada was angry with us. In the BClegislature, the Provincial Minister ofAgriculture said we were reckless andthat the samples had been destroyed,preventing retesting by government.This was not true. The Canadian FoodInspection Agency fanned out and tookpossession of the samples that werestill in Canada. The Minister has neverapologized. The federal Minister of Fisheries andOceans released a statement saying“…Canada’s reputation has needlesslybeen put at risk,” that they retested allthe samples and “…none have tested

positive for ISA.” But this statementwas inaccurate as well.U.S. Senators from Washington state

and Alaska put out a press release stat-ing: “We should not rely on anothergovernment — particularly one thatmay have a motive to misrepresent itsfindings — to determine how we assessthe risk ISA may pose to Americanfishery jobs.” The U.S. Senate quicklypassed legislation calling for an inves-tigation and rapid response to preventthe spread of a potentially deadlysalmon virus. At this point an extraordinary thing

happened. The federal CohenCommission investigating the declineof the Fraser sockeye decided to recallthe lawyers and reopen for threeunscheduled days of hearings inDecember. The very interesting thingabout the Fraser sockeye is that onlythe runs known to migrate north out ofthe river, past all the salmon farms offCampbell River, are in decline. Therun that travels to sea around southernVancouver Island has been increasingover the past 18 years. Furthermore,DFO’s own scientist, Dr. Kristi Millerfound that the millions of Fraser sock-eye dying on the riverbank beforespawning appear to be fighting a virus.Genomic profiling cannot identify thevirus, but it can show the cellularresponse to a virus. Miller should havebeen awarded the Order of Canada forproviding this finding about Canada’smost valuable salmon, but as soon asher data suggested salmon farmingmight be the culprit, her funding wascut and she was redirected away fromsockeye. Her testimony at the August2011 Cohen hearings drew crowds ofmedia and the public, because herinformation was so interesting, but shewas flanked by security guards – noone was allowed to speak to her. She isstill not allowed to speak to the media.



Infectious Salmon AnemiaA British Columbia salmongate?

By Alexandra Morton

— Raincoast Research Society —

Infectious SalmonAnemia virus is a fishinfluenza that has

turned up everywherein the world whereAtlantic salmon

are farmed.

http://www.raincoastresearch.org/

http://www.raincoastresearch.org/

For the December hearings theCohen Commission put together twopanels of witnesses. One was the scien-tists who did the tests: Dr. Are Nylundfrom Norway, Dr. Fred Kibenge of theWorld Organization of Animal HealthISA virus reference lab in PrinceEdward Island, Canada, Dr. KristiMiller, head of the DFO genomic lab inNanaimo, BC and Ms. Nelle Gagne,who did the tests on the confiscatedsamples in the DFO Moncton lab. Thesecond panel consisted of Fisheriesand Oceans Canada (DFO) and theCanadian Food Inspection Agency(CFIA) running the ISAvirus investigation. Dr.Stephen Stephen,Director ofBiotechnology andAquatic Animal HealthSciences (DFO), Dr.Peter Wright, Moncton,DFO, Dr. Kim Klotins(CFIA) and, oddly, a DFOsea lice scientist Dr.Simon Jones, DFONanaimo.From the moment the

hearings opened one rev-elation after the nextpoured into the publicdomain. We learned theMoncton lab, which DFOcalls their “official” lab,uses a diagnosticmachine known to haveproblems detecting lowlevels of ISA virus. Weheard that contrary to whather Minister announced,Nelle Gagne of theMoncton lab did get a weak positiveISAv result. The other three members of the sci-

entific panel all demonstrated credibletest results that some form of ISAv isin British Columbia. The findings wereconsistent between labs. While sometests were strongly positive forEuropean strain ISA virus, thereappears to be a unique BC strain. Thehistory of the virus is unclear, as thesetests are so precise that if the virus hasmutated, results become inconsistent.ISA virus is an influenza known tomutate. Dr. Nylund testified that 80-90% of

Atlantic farm salmon test positive for

ISA virus when their eggs are taken. ADFO website reports BC has received30 million Atlantic salmon eggs since1986. Prior to that, there were severalhorribly misguided efforts to actuallyintroduce Atlantic salmon to BC riversbeginning in 1900. So the chances arehigh BC has received the ISA virusrepeatedly. The mother strain of ISAv, HPR0, is

apparently non-lethal to Atlanticsalmon. This strain moves easilyaround the world because it can bedetected via a technique called RT-PCR, but it cannot be cultured. TheCanada government does not recog-nize ISA virus unless it can be cul-

tured. This is a serious loophole,because scientists have mappedHPR0’s mutations in the abnormallyhigh densities in the farms, deleting aportion of the RNA, and becoming vir-ulent. Prior to salmon farming, BCmay only have received HPR0.

Under intense questioning welearned Dr. Miller was told not to testfor ISA virus, but she persevered andfound it in farm Chinook salmon inClayoquot. As a participant of the Cohen Inquiry,I examined and graphed the farmsalmon records kept by the govern-ment fish farm vet, Dr. Gary Marty.He reported “classic” symptoms ofISA virus in nearly every salmon farm

audit, with the highest numbers of fishaffected in the spring of 2007. Whilehe testified these symptoms mighthave been caused by something else,Miller found the young sockeye pass-ing these sites tested positive for ISAv.Dr. Marty testified his PCR testsresults were negative, but we learnedhe does not use the internationally rec-ognized PCR tests and did not providedetails.The laser-beam precision of the PCR

test can easily miss the ISA target if itis not properly used. The most disturbing finding of the

December hearings was that Fisheriesand Oceans has been hiding positive

ISA virus test results for 6 years. Sealice scientist, Dr. Simon Jones,involved in disproving impact of sealice for years, had co-authored a studythat got ISA virus positive tests in 116salmon in 2002/3 including an Atlanticsalmon, Chinook from Alaska and nearVancouver Island, pink salmon and,unbelievably, 100% of 64 Fraser sock-eye from Cultus Lake.These results had been confirmed by

Dr. Kibenge, and it was Kibenge thatbroke ranks with Jones to make thework public for these hearings. ISAvirus is an internationally reportabledisease, but the Americans didn’t know




The upper line on the graph indicates the ISA-like lesions, the lower line shows Marine Anemiasymptoms. The a, b, c, and d after the years on the x axis indicate quarters. Graph courtesyRaincoast Research Society.

there were positive ISAv results forsalmon caught in Alaska. DFO nevertold the Stó:lō� First Nation, whose ter-ritory includes Cultus Lake. Theynever told the Cohen Commission,which required Canada to produce alldocuments related to the Fraser sock-eye. They never reported this to theWorld Organization for Animal Health– even though Canada is a signatorynation and ISAv is reportable. Theygave no credible answer why they hadhidden these test results. They justsaid they didn’t believe the tests.The bad news went on. Dr. Miller’s

lab also found evidence of the newemerging Norwegian farm salmonvirus called Hearth and SkeletonMuscle Inflammation (HSMI). She tes-tified to also finding this insidious virusin the failed 2007 Fraser sockeyesmolts. While government reportedthe salmon that tested positive for ISAvirus were “healthy,” Miller’s lab hasthe ability to read cellular activity, andshe presented evidence these positivefish were in fact fighting the flu…. ISAvis a form of flu.Miller also updated testimony given

in September, where it was indicatedthat BC salmon farmers would workwith Miller to allow her to test theirfish. But now we hear the talks veeredoff course, with the BC salmon farm-ers offering only to become partners inMiller’s sockeye health research. NoAtlantic salmon testing. So, Miller tes-tified, she went to the governmentsalmon farm vet, Dr. Marty forAtlantic salmon tissue. He sent thesamples so degraded they were use-less. Next up were the regulators, and

everything began to make sense. It issimple. The Canadian government isworking to protect trade, not wildsalmon. In an email exhibit the CFIAsays the Fisheries Minister’s Office“may not understand that ISAV is nolonger theirs.” Because ISAv is such aserious international pathogen, theCFIA is now in charge of testing andreporting. However, the CFIA testifiedthey have never heard of the WildSalmon Policy – government’s under-used tool to protect wild salmon.Nobody in government has the specificmandate to protect wild salmon fromISA virus. In fact, there are roadblocks

to that end similar to the ones Millerfaces.Several (CFIA) email exhibits seri-

ously call into question the integrityand reliability of the agency’s handlingof the most lethal salmon diseaseknown. A Nov. 4 CFIA email ponderedwhether to “advise all laboratories inCanada to not test any more samples ofwild finfish for ISA.” Another CFIAemail stated:

“It is clear that we are turning the PRtide to our favour - and this is becauseof the very successful performance ofour spokes at the Tech Briefing yester-day - you, Stephen, Peter and Paulwere a terrific team, indeed.Congratulations!One battle is won, now we have to

nail the surveillance piece, and we willwin the war, also.” (CFIA email Nov. 9)

This disturbing choice of wordsprompted Commission lawyer BrockMartland to ask:

“… instead of this being a collectiveenterprise where people are trying tolearn the truth of a situation, this is ahockey game and we’re wearing redjerseys and we want to score on theother goal. Is it an adversarial thing? Isthe CFIA going into this out of concernfor trade partners and other interestswith a view to however we get there toannouncing there is no ISAv?”

In his final argument my lawyer,Greg McDade writes:

“The Ministers’ two statements, datedNovember 9 and December 2, 2011,were

1) misleading on the matters disclosedand under the circumstances, were2) highly misleading in the failure todisclose the further findings of ISA in

additional samples.”

“This protective reaction clearly per-meates the entire senior managementstaff at DFO, and demonstrates yetagain why promotion of the aquacul-ture industry has corrupted DFO’smandate to protect wild salmon.”

In answer to lawyer KristaRobertson, acting for the First Nationsof the Broughton Archipelago, we aretipped off to the gravity of this situa-tion for Norwegian fish farmers in BC:

DR KLOTINS: “…So if, let’s say, we dofind ISA in B.C. and all of a suddenmarkets are closed, our role [CFIA] isthen to try to renegotiate or negotiatemarket access to those countries. Nowwhat it will be is a matter of they'll letus know what the requirements are.We'll let them know what we can doand whether we can meet that marketaccess. If we can't meet it, then therewill be no trade basically.”

I don’t know when the Canadian gov-ernment lost control of salmon farms,but clearly the winds of trade havecaught their sails and taken the helm.They have run afoul of trade laws andare dragging anchor through the mostvaluable wild fisheries on earth with nomechanism for change. My suggestionis we turn to ourselves for wild salmonhealth monitoring. Wild salmon areperfect and only need us to get out oftheir way. I propose linking all wildsalmon groups, do the testing our-selves and go back to society to findsolutions. We need to become our ownpeople’s Department of Wild Salmon,and this is what I am working on now.If we are really intelligent and useeverything we know, we can give wildsalmon the fighting chance to survive.If we want wild salmon it is up to us.



The Osprey on the WebThe Osprey now has its own website, http://www.ospreysteelhead.org/.

Learn about our history, check on the status of wild steelhead and salmon

populations and download past copies of The Osprey.

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“Support Us” tab under the “Home” tab. Be sure to specify your donation is

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Greg Stahl is the Assistant PolicyDirector at Idaho Rivers United. His e-mail is [email protected]. The web-site is www.idahorivers.org.

It’s been 26 years since KerryBrennan caught his first steel-head in the Salmon River nearthe central Idaho town ofWhitebird. Since then this

white-haired, bearded mountain mav-erick has earned the reputation ofbeing one of the most accomplishedand successful steelhead guides on theSalmon.As owner of Rapid River Outfitters inRiggins, Brennan has logged thou-sands of hours on the Salmon andknows its subtle currents. “I caughtmy first Salmon River steelhead inNovember of 1986—a 33-inch hatcheryfish,” he said. “This is special up here.In Idaho you can be in the mountainsand catch steelhead. They come far-ther in. This river runs clear and fish-able longer than any other I’ve heardof. We’re blessed with a six-month sea-son here most years.”

But it’s not what it used to be.Scientists estimate that several millionwild steelhead and salmon oncereturned every year to the Snake Riverand its largest tributaries, theClearwater and Salmon rivers. By the1950s, after decades of habitatdestruction, industrial over-fishing anddam building on the Columbia River,the number of wild steelhead andsalmon returning annually to theSnake River basin had alreadydropped to 200,000 annually. By the1970s, after construction of four damson the lower Snake River that furtherimpeded migration to and from thePacific, populations plummeted.

Wild steelhead and salmon nowreturn to Idaho at a rate of less than 2percent of their historic vigor, and thistragic decline has had an unmistakableimpact on the state’s people, places andeconomy. From its mountains to itsdeserts, and across all its socioeco-

nomic strata, Idaho is a diminishedplace without them.“We wouldn’t even have a sport fish-

ery without hatcheries,” Brennan said.

Returns

In the massive Columbia River Basin,the Snake River once produced almosthalf of all the summer steelhead andspring/summer Chinook. And in thatuniverse of salmon-rich tributaries,the Salmon River alone produced 39percent of all the spring/summerChinook in the entire Columbia Basin.It’s an amazingly productive tributaryas long as the migratory path to thePacific is open.“So the bottom line, especially for the

folks who like to de-emphasize theimportance of lower-Snake River damremoval, we’re missing the biggest sin-gle opportunity in the entire Columbiasystem to recover salmon and steel-head,” said Bert Bowler, a retiredIdaho Department of Fish and Gamefisheries biologist. “The habitat isintact and protected, but we’ve got todeal with the migration corridor.There’s feeding habitat in the ocean,and there’s spawning and nurseryhabitat in the tributaries of the SnakeRiver Basin, especially in Idaho’sSalmon River.” The Snake River’s coho salmon were

declared extinct in 1986. In 1991,Idaho’s sockeye salmon were listedunder the Endangered Species Act asendangered. Chinook salmon were list-

ed as threatened in 1992, and steelheadwere similarly listed in 1997. Riversthat once teemed with fish so thickthey bore the appearance of a walkablesurface are now nearly empty, andcentral Idaho is increasingly bereft ofa species and piece of culture thathelped shape its identity. Gone is thetransformative abundance that fed anentire ecosystem.“If salmon and steelhead can’t flour-

ish in central Idaho they probably can’tflourish anywhere,” Bowler said. “Thedifference between the abundancefrom the days of Lewis and Clark tonow is just—well, it’s not even compa-rable.”Compared with the 1980s when an

average of 28,000 wild and 65,000hatchery-raised steelhead returned toIdaho each year, returns of the pastfew years have improved modestly,but as Brennan pointed out, the major-ity of returning fish are now raised inhatcheries. From 2001-2002 to 2010-2011, an average of 25,000 wild and168,000 hatchery-raised fish returned.In 2010-2011 about 42,000 wild steel-head compared with 150,000 hatchery-raised fish swam into Idaho’s abundantspawning waters.These ratios are unacceptable,

Bowler said, and do not constituterecovery under the EndangeredSpecies Act. The National Oceanic andAtmospheric Administration hasn’t setofficial numbers to define recovery, butBowler estimates about 90,000 wildsteelhead would be needed to removethe species from the ESA.Returns of spring/summer Chinook

salmon have improved modestly inrecent years, too, though are far shortof recovery. In 2011 about 22,000 wildChinook compared with about 74,000hatchery-raised fish returned. Bowlerestimates recovery would requireabout 80,000 returning wild Chinook.Moreover, recent returns have bene-

fitted from improved ocean conditions,improved spring flows for the ocean-



Idaho Salmon UpdateBy Greg Stahl

— Idaho Rivers United —

If salmon and steel-head can’t flourish incentral Idaho thenthey probably can’tflourish anywhere.

http://www.idahorivers.org/

mailto:[email protected]

bound migration, and the court-ordered spill of water over the damsand through reservoirs on the lowerSnake and Columbia rivers. Whenocean conditions and river flows take aturn for the worse, fish returns willundoubtedly slip.

Legal Update

Last summer, Idaho’s wild steelheadand salmon won a significant victory inU.S. District Court in Portland. In astrongly worded opinion, Judge JamesRedden ruled on Aug. 2, 2011 that thefederal government’s most recentsalmon recovery blueprint forColumbia-Snake river salmon wasinsufficient and illegal. Specifically, Redden declared that theNational Oceanic and AtmosphericAdministration’s Fisheries Servicefailed yet again to produce a legal andscientifically sound plan that protectsendangered Columbia and Snakerivers steelhead and salmon from thelethal impacts of federal dams. It wasthe fourth NOAA salmon plan over-turned in 20 years.It was a landmark decision for steel-

head and salmon and a big win for thepeople of the Pacific Northwest andIdaho. Fifteen fishing and conservationgroups including Idaho Rivers Unitedand the Federation of Fly Fishers,along with the state of Oregon and theNez Perce Tribe and others challengedthe plan in court.“There’s no downside for Idaho in thejudge’s ruling, although some politi-cians will complain,” said Tom Stuart,an Idaho Rivers United board memberand avid Idaho fisherman. “I hope itleads to meaningful talks, where peo-ple can sit down and find a legal, scien-tifically sound plan that will actuallyrestore Idaho’s wild salmon. The judgehas said the federal government mustfollow the law. That is something allIdahoans ought to cheer.”In his decision, Redden called on

NOAA to produce a new or supplemen-tal plan that corrects the current one’sreliance on unidentified mitigationmeasures for populations that havebeen on the fence for decades.“It is one thing to identify a list of

actions, or combination of potentialactions, to produce an expected sur-

vival improvement and then modifythose actions through adaptive man-agement to reflect changed circum-stances,” Redden wrote on page 16 ofthe decision. “It is another to simplypromise to figure it all out in thefuture. Federal Defendants need notarticulate every detail of a habitat mit-igation plan. They must do more thanthey have here.”

Earthjustice attorney SteveMashuda, who represented fishing andconservation groups in the case, calledthe win a “victory for thenation and the Northwest.”

“We’re extremelypleased with the judge’sdecision, but the workdoesn’t stop here,” he said.“Now this region and thisadministration have anopportunity to changedirection and to bring peo-ple together to solve thislongstanding debate. Wehope the President, histeam and the region willgrab hold of this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity andbuild a solution that canserve as a model for therest of the nation.”Stuart said the decision is an oppor-

tunity to look forward rather than backand to embrace sound science and thelaw as stakeholders in the region sitdown to work out lasting solutions.“With this decision the time is right

for the Obama administration and oursenators and representatives in thePacific Northwest to take action,”Stuart said. “It is time for our lawmak-ers to take ownership of this issue andcraft a path for our future — one thathas healthy salmon runs and healthyrivers. This decision clears the way toconsider more seriously removing thefour obsolete dams on the lower SnakeRiver, which are killing salmon andsteelhead in huge numbers and bleed-ing rural Idaho economies and thestate’s ecological and cultural her-itage.”In his decision, Redden stated that

the NOAA plan does not pass a legaltest, but it also doesn’t pass a realitytest. Without major changes to the fed-eral dam system on the Columbia andSnake rivers, the reality is that theAmerican people will lose one of theirmost valuable natural and economic

assets.“Forty years ago places like Idaho’s

Salmon River were salmon strong-holds, with huge numbers returningevery year,” Stuart said. “Now centralIdaho has become a potential Noah’sArk, only one of a few remainingplaces where wild salmon can stillthrive, and where restoring them isstill possible. Judge Redden’s decisionrepresents strong support for restor-ing Idaho values, traditions, ecologyand heritage.”

This is something Idaho’s rural busi-nessmen like Brennan know well.Many depend on fishermen and thebusiness they generate for economicvitality. They depend on retaining andrestoring this vital part of Idaho’s her-itage.“These fish are unique on a global

scale,” Stuart said. “Some of themswim more than 900 miles and climbnearly 7,000 feet to reach their spawn-ing beds in the Sawtooth Valley.They’re certainly an important eco-nomic asset to numerous rural Idahotowns, but the miracle of salmon —and the importance of Idaho to theirrecovery in the Columbia River basin— can’t be overstated.”In addition to requiring a rewritten

Biological Opinion (BiOp) by Jan. 1,2014, Redden’s decision requires thefederal government to continuespilling water to help flush baby fishfrom their rearing habitat in Idaho andeastern Oregon downstream to theocean.“As I have previously found, there is

ample evidence in the record that indi-




The upper Salmon River basin was once a strongholdfor spawning Idaho salmon and steelhead. Photo byJim Yuskavitch

cates that the operation of the FCRPS(Federal Columbia River PowerSystem) causes substantial harm tolisted salmonids,” Redden wrote. And as was consistent throughout his24-page ruling, Redden expresseddoubts about the government’s habitatimprovement strategies. “As noted, I continue to have serious

reservations about NOAA Fisheries’habitat mitigation plans for theremainder of this BiOp,” he wrote.“Everyone agrees that habitatimprovement is vital to recovery andmay lead to increased fish survival, butthe lack of scientific support for NOAAFisheries’ specific survival predictionsis troubling.”Stuart put it this way. “The judge’s

ruling is a victory for Idahoans,” hesaid. “We’re grateful, but we’re notsurprised. The judge simply followedthe law.”

Judge Redden Steps Down

In addition to issuing his landmarkruling in August, Redden’s actionsmarked another turning point thatunfolded on Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2011when he announced he would stepaside as the judge who has presidedover the case for nearly 15 years. “Judge Redden has done more for

wild salmon than three presidents, fivefederal agencies and 10 Congressescombined,” said IRU ExecutiveDirector Bill Sedivy. “By demandingthat federal salmon managers followsound science and the law, he has beena tremendous force in slowing theextinction of wild salmon in Idaho andthe Northwest.”In striking down salmon plans in

2000, 2004 and 2011, Redden articulat-ed that the law is on the side of salmon,salmon businesses and salmon advo-cates and that federal salmon man-agers haven’t done enough.Picking up the case file is U.S. DistrictJudge Michael Simon, an Obamaappointee who worked on formerOregon Congressman David Wu’sstaff. Sedivy said he is confident thatSimon will follow the law as well.“Our salmon and steelhead haven’t

had much help over the years fromNorthwest political leaders or theagencies charged with protectingthem,” Sedivy said. “But thanks to

Judge Redden, Mother Nature and atireless group of advocates, they’restill here.“With Judge Redden stepping away,we hope that federal salmon managerswill review his August ruling and makeneeded changes to the biological opin-ion driving salmon management andrecovery measures. If they do that, wecan build a collaborative, science-dri-ven process for the region’s stakehold-ers, build solutions that work for peo-ple and fish, and resolve the Northwestsalmon and steelhead crisis once andfor all.”

A Push for Collaboration

In late-November 2011 more than 50members of Congress wrote PresidentObama to request that he convene astakeholder-driven, collaborativeprocess to end the 20-year cycle of liti-gation. They’re part of a growing cho-rus of voices calling for collaborativesolutions to this unresolved issue.In their letter the bipartisan contin-

gent of 52 House members asked thepresident to “help resolve long-stand-ing issues surrounding the protectionand restoration of salmon and steel-head in the Pacific Northwest.”“This forum would bring together allstakeholders to develop scientifically-sound and fiscally-sustainable salmonrecovery options for Congress and theAdministration,” they wrote.Neither Idaho congressman, Rep.

Mike Simpson (R) or Rep. RaulLabrador (R), signed the letter.Idaho’s two senators, however, have

issued similar, independent calls forcollaboration. Sen. Mike Crapo (R)called for a process during a Boisespeech in May 2009, and Sen. JimRisch (R) pointed out the benefits of acollaborative approach in a guest opin-ion published with Trout Unlimited’spresident in the (Portland) Oregonianon Nov. 6, 2011.“We’re thrilled to see more membersof Congress join the calls from ourIdaho senators, and others, in seekingbroadly-supported solutions for ourendangered salmon,” Sedivy said. “Thefish can’t afford another decade oflegal wrangling, and collaborationpromises the surest avenue to resolvethis issue.”

Continued Optimism

Meanwhile, the people of Idaho’ssmall rural towns like Lewiston,Riggins, Salmon, Challis and Stanleycontinue to work to make ends meetamidst the turmoil centering on thelower Snake River’s salmon-killingdams.Gary Lane owns Wapiti River Guides,a commercial outfitter just down theroad from Brennan’s place in Riggins.He said it can be difficult to remainhopeful for salmon and steelheadrecovery after 20 years of cyclicallegal wrangling. Recent developments,however, constitute a distinct windowof opportunity to chart a new course.“What makes me optimistic is, look

how resilient these fish are,” he said.“Look at how they’ve rebounded inplaces where the dams come out. Youcan’t mess around forever, but there’splenty of reason for hope.”Half of Lane’s business comes from

steelhead fishing. For Brennan, thatnumber stands at 100 percent. Withoutsalmon and steelhead both of thesesmall Idaho businesses would vanish.“And it’s not just the outfitters,” Lanesaid. “You can see it during fishing sea-son: the cars lined up, the people linedup on the bank, the restaurants filled,the hotels filled. Steelhead and salmonare big business up here.”



Riggins, Idaho guide Terry Brennan isone of many people whose businessdepends on salmon and steelhead. Photoby Greg Stahl.

Will Atlas is a graduate of theUniversity of Washington in fisheriesand is now a graduate student at theSimon Fraser University Departmentof Biology. He is an avid steelheadangler and spey caster as well as Chairof the Steelhead Committee and TheOsprey’s editorial board.

Perhaps more than any otherregion in the PacificNorthwest, Puget Soundexemplifies the challengesand opportunities associated

with protecting and restoring wildsalmon in the 21st century. Now hometo more than 4 million people, thePuget Sound region is among thefastest growing urban areas in thecountry. It is also home to all fivespecies of Pacific salmon, winter andsummer steelhead, as well as anadro-mous bull trout and coastal cutthroattrout.

Formed by the recession of theCordilleran Ice Sheet more than 10thousand years ago, this glacial legacyleft the Puget Sound region laced withrivers, which, upon descending fromtheir mountainous headwaters, enterthe Puget Sound lowlands where theyonce meandered at will across broadglacial valleys. In these valleys,salmon once thrived in a rich tapestryof flood plain habitats formed by theunimpeded linkage of riparian forestand river, which created a vast net-work of sloughs, oxbow ponds, ground-water channels and stable braidedreaches of river. This abundance ofriver habitat coupled with the 1,300miles of healthy Puget Sound shorelineprovided a nursery for some of themost abundant and diverse populationsof salmon and steelhead on the planet. As late as the 1890s, the large rivers

of the region, which drained from theCascade crest to the Puget Sound low-lands, supported almost unfathomablenumbers of wild salmon and steelhead.To the settlers flooding into the PugetSound country in the late 19th Century,there was a sense of inexhaustibility tothe plentiful resources, which sur-

rounded them, and they quickly beganthe task of cutting timber, harvestingfish and altering the landscape to meetexpectations and needs of agricultureand urban growth. Marshes andsloughs were drained, old growthcedar, hemlock and Douglas fir loggedalong the valley bottoms, and riversand tidal flats were diked and filled tocreate fertile farmland. In 1876, a logjam spanning almost 2 miles of riverwas removed from the Lower SkagitRiver by the Army Corps of Engineersto accommodate shipping traffic, andin 1916 the Black River, the traditionaloutlet of Lake Washington, disap-peared entirely with the creation of theship canal. While these tremendousfeats of engineering offer the greatestexamples of the pressures industrialcivilization placed on the rivers ofPuget Sound, the cumulative effects ofcountless smaller harms were fargreater. Early settlers also proved extremely

adept at harvesting salmon and steel-head. The Wild Salmon Center pub-lished a paper authored by NickGayeski and Bill McMillan, of the WildFish Conservancy, in collaborationwith Pete Soverel, founder of the WildSalmon Center, which estimated steel-head abundance at the close of the 19thCentury based upon early catchrecords for the US Fish Commissionand other sources. The authors esti-mated that steelhead harvest peaked in1895, when about 450,000 fish were har-vested. The authors then modeled pos-sible harvest rates to estimate a rangeof abundances for individual PugetSound populations in 1895 (note thatthese populations had already beensubstantially reduced by excessiveharvest): Puget Sound total: 485,100-929,700; Nooksack: 101,400 – 169000;Skagit: 70,000 – 149,000; Snohomish:114,000 – 224,000; Stillaguamish 51,700– 100,000; the remainder of PugetSound: about 148,000 - 287,700. TheWild Fish Conservancy recently pub-lished an expanded version of thispaper, based on additional work by theauthors with Pat Trotter.

To put this in context, over the pastthree years, Puget Sound Rivers haveseen record low returns of steelhead,but even before the most recent down-turn, steelhead abundance in PugetSound was at its low ebb. Between 1980and 2004, what many modern anglersconsider the “good” years for PugetSound, total returns to the rivers ofPuget Sound averaged 22,000 fish or 1-4% of the estimated historical abun-dance of steelhead in the region. In2007, Puget Sound steelhead joinedChinook salmon as a threatenedspecies under the Endangered SpeciesAct, with the Puget Sound populationless than 1% of the 1895 levels. Othersalmon species have fared slightly bet-ter, but remain depressed significantlyfrom historic levels.

The Crisis

No single factor has led to the declineof wild salmon in Puget Sound, but ashabitat loss and over harvest havetaken their toll on wild salmon popula-tions, wild fish have gradually beenreplaced by hatchery production.Today, more than 70 state, federal andtribal hatcheries and net pens releasehundreds of millions of hatchery fishinto Puget Sound each year, undermin-ing the viability of already threatenedwild stocks. Despite concerns aboutthe impacts of hatchery fish, these pro-grams have continued largely unabat-ed, even as state managers curtailcatch-and-release angling for steel-head to protect fragile runs. Equallyfrustrating is the fact that for all theiradverse impacts on wild populations,hatcheries are an extremely inefficientway of creating fishing opportunity. AState Auditor’s report from 2010showed that immature “blackmouth”Chinook caught in Puget Sound costtaxpayers an average of $798 per fish.That sam,e year WDFW spent $52 mil-lion on hatcheries throughout the state,a number that dwarfs their expendi-tures on other far more pressing dutiessuch as research, monitoring andenforcement. In an era of dwindling



Puget Sound: Past Present and FutureBy Will Atlas

— Federation of Fly Fishers Steelhead Committee —

state budgets and declining wildsalmon, this wasteful hypocrisy has toend. The state has begun the process ofidentifying Wild SalmonidManagement Zones (WSMZ’s), whichare areas without hatchery salmon orsteelhead to be protected as refugiafor wild fish. The successful imple-mentation of these WSMZs is an essen-tial step towards the recovery of wildsalmon and steelhead in the PugetSound area. Yet perhaps the least understood andmost critical factor for the recovery ofwild salmon and steelhead in PugetSound and the wider Georgia BasinRegion is what happens once fish leavefor the ocean. Since the 1990s, the sur-vival of juvenile salmonids at sea hasbeen steadily declining, particularlyfor steelhead, and the last 5 years havebrought record low returns to manyrivers in Puget Sound. While biologistsaround the region have long recog-nized the importance of the marineenvironment for wild salmon and steel-head, the marine ecology of steelheadand the factors that determine sur-vival in a given year are virtualunknowns. Poor marine survival isparticularly frustrating in light ofslow, continued improvement in fresh-water habitat conditions in the PugetSound and restrictive sport fishing reg-ulations, which have all but eliminatedsport fishing impacts on wild steel-head. Since the early 2000s when research

first began to document the impacts ofopen net pen salmon farms on wildsalmon populations, there has beenspeculation that aquaculture may havea hand in the recent declines. Indeed,the declines in marine survival wit-nessed throughout the Georgia Basinoverlap conspicuously with the growthof the aquaculture industry in BritishColumbia and to a more limited extent,the US. While it is equally probablethat declines in marine survival arethe product of climate driven cyclicalchanges in the productivity of PugetSound’s waters, or long term changesassociated with anthropogenic climatechange, recent revelations about theimpacts of disease – possibly fromsalmon farms – on salmon populationsin British Columbia have heightenedconcerns.In early 2011, Canadian researchers

found evidence that a viral disease wascausing upwards of 90% pre-spawnmortality in Fraser Sockeye; then lastfall a flood of new information cameforward. First was revelation thatInfectious Salmon Anemia virus(ISAv), a disease that ravaged theChilean salmon farming industry, waspresent in British Columbia, with fishfrom both River’s Inlet and the lowerFraser testing positive for the disease.Then, came news that researcherswith the Canadian Department ofFisheries and Oceans had known 8years ago about the presence of ISAvin BC’s waters and were muzzled bytheir superiors. While both revelations are cause for

concern, the reality is, at this point weknow very little about the disease ecol-ogy of wild Pacific salmon. US agen-cies have responded quickly to thenews of ISAv’s presence in BC, estab-lishing an interagency task force and acomprehensive plan to test populationsof salmon in Washington and Alaskafor the disease. The degree of urgencyand the rapid response by state andfederal agencies is extremely encour-aging; however we mustn’t lose sightof the forest for the trees. It may wellbe that ISAv is in fact endemic to thewaters of the Pacific, but has been pre-viously undocumented, highlightingthe present lack of knowledge onnative pathogens and their role insalmon survival. Gathering more dataand expanding our knowledge aboutthe linkages between wild salmon pop-ulation dynamics and the presence ofpathogens, and the degree to whichdisease transmission is facilitated bythe presence of salmon farms isabsolutely essential if we hope toimplement policies that will increasethe survival of wild salmon at sea.

What’s Being Done

Scientists often refer to the four H’sof salmon conservation, habitat loss,harvest, hatcheries, and hydro dams.While there are dams on several of therivers in Puget Sound they have gener-ally inundated only small portions ofsalmon’s historically accessible habi-tat in the region. Efforts are underwayto provide passage at several dams,and this year a nearly 20 year effort torestore the Elwha, Puget Sound’s west-ern most drainage, culminated withthe removal of two dams — Elwha and

Glines Canyon. All told, these effortswill open more than a hundred miles ofhabitat for wild salmon and steelhead. Projects like the Elwha are special

because the impact is instantaneousand the payoff is so tangible. By nextfall salmon should be able to access theriver above Elwha Dam and by the fol-lowing year fish will ascend the riverto it’s headwaters above Glines CanyonDam; nearly 90 miles of newly avail-able habitat. Projects like these are aonce in a lifetime opportunity, but thereality is true recovery is a muchlonger slog. While human populationgrowth and the attendant urbanizationhave taken a lasting toll on the riversand estuaries of Puget Sound, much ofthe damage is reversible, given time,resources and a commitment from thecitizens of the Pacific Northwest torestoring wild salmon. It starts with protecting the habitat

that already exists. Left to their owndevices and protected from overzeal-ous logging, road building and develop-ment, many watersheds are slowlyhealing on their own. As riparianforests slowly regenerate, they willincreasingly function as they wouldhave historically. One need go no fur-ther than some areas of the North ForkSkykomish, Sauk and Skagit rivers tosee areas where an intact floodplainand riparian forest are allowing a riverto function properly, creating idealhabitat for spawning and rearingsalmon. While these areas are rare andmust be protected, they serve as animportant baseline for the recovery ofwatersheds within our region. This year the Puget Sound Technical

Recovery Team (TRT) released a draftdocument identifying historical sub-populations within Puget Sound. Thisdocument will serve as the foundationfor the TRT going forward, as theywork with state and local governmentsand Native American co-managers tocraft a recovery plan for Puget SoundSteelhead. While this is an encouragingstart, there is much work yet to bedone. Can we work together, in the faceof climate change and increasinghuman population pressure, to protectand restore wild salmonids within ourregion? The coming years will betelling for Puget Sound and, if success-ful, will provide a template for therecovery of wild salmon in our chang-ing world.



Greg Gordon is the secretary for theB.C. Federation of Fly Fishers and amember of the FFF’s SteelheadCommittee. Greg’s most recent articlefor The Osprey, “Thompson RiverTanked,” appeared in Issue #70,September 2011. The website iswww.bcfff.bc.ca.

When you’re wrong,you’re wrong: best toadmit that up front. Mylast article for TheOsprey, three short

months ago, morbidly concluded with“… anglers will never again crawl thebanks of the river seeking Thompsonsteelhead.” As it turns out anglers areindeed again crawling the banks of theThompson River.

In a stunning announcement onOctober 26th, the B.C. Ministry ofForests, Lands and Natural ResourceOperations (MFLNRO) opened theThompson and Chilcotin rivers to sportfishing under, arguably, dubious cir-cumstances. Suspiciously, thisannouncement came about 24 hoursafter the federal Department ofFisheries and Oceans (DFO) signaledthe closure of the Fraser River to anypossible commercial chum salmon netopenings due to low returns of thesesalmon.At that time, MFLNRO indicated thatthere was a 40% chance of meeting theabundance reference point of 850Thompson steelhead as determined inthe Albion test fishery, a number previ-ously established as a conservationthreshold for the opening or closing ofthe Thompson sports fishery andFraser commercial chum fisheries. In justification of the sport fishing

opening, Rob Bison, the MFLNRO biol-ogist stated: “Normally, productivityassessments are updated once spawn-ing stocks have been estimated in thespring and the in-season forecast con-firmed. However, productivity assess-ments that have been recently updatedusing the current forecast for the2011/12 return are beginning to revealthat the stocks may be stabilizing atlower levels of abundance. It also

appears that the stocks are able towithstand the low level of fishing relat-ed mortality associated with the catchand release recreational fishery. It isnot possible to foresee how long thisnew apparent stability will last.Historically, productivity has variedand declined dramatically since theearly 1970s.”The MFLNRO announcement furtheradmitted that at that point, interiorFraser steelhead escapementappeared to be following the trend ofthe previous three years: for theThompson 600 steelhead; and for the

Chilcotin River 290 steelhead. For thepast two seasons there was sufficientmanagement concern over dwindlingescapement to close both sport fish-eries. Recently I had an opportunity to

question Rob Bison, the MFLNROsteelhead biologist in charge of theThompson River, regarding the newlyapplied productivity assessment meth-ods used to reopen the two sport fish-eries:

Q: Will you explain what the updatedpreseason productivity assessmentsare?

A: “The productivity assessment is ananalysis whereby we [MFLNRO] trackhow the carrying capacity and produc-tivity is changing over time. In thiscontext, the carrying capacity is theaverage size of the stock if it were leftunfished and allowed to stabilize innumber. The productivity can bethought of as the ability of the stock towithstand fishing pressure. Fish stocks

do this by improving their survivalrates when the stock is fished down innumbers. The data needed for such anassessment includes annual spawningpopulation estimates along with esti-mates of the number of fish lost to var-ious fisheries, along with estimates ofthe age composition. In recent years(since the late 1990s), most of the infor-mation about carrying capacity andproductivity is contained in the annualestimates of spawner numbers. This isbecause fishing mortality rates havebeen low, but we still account for thelosses to fisheries as a matter of proce-dure. We do this in various waysdepending on the fishery and depend-ing on the data available. It is notimportant to get into the details of the“reconstruction” procedures. Themain point here is that in recent years,it is the spawning population estimatesthat are most important. And we havevery good spawning population esti-mates for the Thompson.”

Q: Why were these preseason produc-tivity assessment methodologies notapplied in previous years?

A: “The methods were published in thescientific literature in the early 2000s,2003 in particular by SFU [SimonFraser University] researchers work-ing on Bristol Bay sockeye. DFO hassince adopted these methods for Frasersockeye assessment (2010), and wehave followed suit. It has also takensome time for us to prepare the steel-head data, particularly the annual agecomposition data going back about 25-30 years. So unlike before, we are nowin position to track the annual changesin carrying capacity and productivity.This is a good and timely advancementbecause we have come to understandthat north Pacific steelhead andsalmon do not maintain constant car-rying capacities and productivities.These things change with climatecycling, they may change more perma-nently with climate change, and theychange because of competitionbetween stocks and between species



More Troubles on the ThompsonBy Greg Gordon

— BC Federation of Fly Fishers, Federation of Fly Fishers Steelhead Committee —

The Thompson Riverhas been opened tosport fishing under,arguably, dubious circumstances.

http://www.bcfff.bc.ca

while rearing in the ocean.”

Q: Were the newly applied productivityassessments utilized in determiningthe productivity status of the ChilcotinRiver, which opened to sport fishingconcurrently with the Thompson? (Inreviewing past steelhead escapementdata for the Chilcotin it would appearas though escapement is anything butstable as has been suggested for theThompson.)

A: “Yes. It so happens that theChilcotin steelhead are trending aheadof Thompson steelhead, so there areactually more data about the currentstatus of Chilcotin than there are forThompson. Both appear to be stabiliz-ing and settling at new and lower car-rying capacities. There is no tellinghow long this might last, but we are setup to monitor and update on an annualbasis if need be and if financed to doso.”

Q: It would appear that in utilizingsuch updated assessments, fewersteelhead are required as a lower ref-erence benchmark in Albion test fish-eries in order to open the sport fish-eries and for the management ofFraser chum fisheries as detailed infisheries management plans. Are therenow lower benchmarks and whatwould they be specific to the Thompson(previously 850) and the entire Fraserwatershed (previously 1250)?

A: “Not yet. This will be the subject ofmanagement discussions with DFO.”

Q: What is the mortality rate associat-ed with the Thompson sport fishery?

A: “The average rate of mortality perfish captured and released is 3% basedon hatchery broodstock capturerecords. When this rate is applied tothe number of steelhead caught in thesport fishery, and then if you add-in thelosses in downstream fisheries, you canthen compute the fishing mortality rateon the stock (i.e. the proportion of thestock that dies from the catch andrelease sport fishery). Here is a typicalscenario for recent years. The catch(and release) in the Thompson sportfishery generally equates to the abun-dance of Thompson fish, so on average

every fish gets caught once. Thatmeans that 3% of the fish that make itto the Thompson will die from catchand release. If the downstream lossesprior to arriving to the Thompsonamount to a 15% fishing mortality rateon the stock, then the fishing mortalityrate on the stock from the catch-and-release sport fishery would calculateout to 2.6%. People also refer to this asthe “exploitation” rate.”

While some of the theoretical machi-nations of a fisheries biologist remainon par with the mysteries of quantumphysics, in this case the productivityassessment methods must be recog-nized for what they are: purely techni-cal theories based upon assumptions. Steelhead smolt production estimatesare based upon parr observation in theThompson mainstem. What differenti-ates a resident rainbow from a steel-head parr? Are there tributary specif-ic steelhead spawning escapementrequirement estimates? The big ques-tion: what about bio-diversity?In referring to the River Finn in

northern Ireland, Ori Vigfusson of theNorth Atlantic Salmon Fund (NASF)drew some interesting parallels to thecurrent interior Fraser steelhead situ-ation: “The Lough Agency has usedmodels based upon minimum spawn-ing escapement levels instead of lis-tening to the NASF call for a return toabundance and the creation of astronger population base throughgreater numbers. We at NASF criticizethe narrow focus on egg deposition tar-gets because rivers need far morespawning fish than are necessary tosatisfy meager theoretical minimumlevels. ��“The practice of calculating back-

wards from juvenile habitat surveys toan estimation of required egg depositsis insufficient on its own, because itignores the salmon's need for thediversity and protection againstthreats that abundant numbers pro-vide. It also takes no account of thenormal but highly variable occurrenceof lethal weather, pollution, and otherevents that inflict high egg and frymortality. There is good reason whysalmon populations are prodigiouswhen it comes to spawning. The fishdeposit large numbers of eggs becauseso few of their ova survive and everyseason is different in terms of the

unpredictability of weather, damagingevents, and water levels. ��“It is not reasonable to ignore these

diverse factors and assume that a one-fits-all scenario can be safely con-structed on a computer which does notrecognize what mother nature hasbeen very successfully doing for thelast ten thousand years. Given the cur-rent abysmally low number of adultsalmon in many rivers, the only ratio-nal strategy is to maximize egg deposi-tion from the current runs and to worksimultaneously to re-establish theenvironmental qualities of the rivers.” It should also be noted that with the

sport fishery reopening, there were noadditional restrictions placed on thefishery (i.e. bait ban) to minimizeangler/fish interaction, as has been thecase in similar circumstances for therest of the province. According to past radio telemetry

studies, not all fish immediately ascendthe Thompson; an unknown portion ofthe run over-winter in the FraserRiver, so clearly sport fishers catchsome fish more than once because thesteelhead in the Fraser are largely outof reach. Further, there is the lack ofdata regarding the long-term implica-tions of repetitive capture on steel-head, and hatchery broodstock collec-tions—largely conducted by “profes-sional” anglers—are not designed asmortality studies. An example: are allcaptured steelhead retained for brood-stock purposes? Or are mortallyinjured steelhead returned to thewater because dead steelhead will notserve any practical purpose? Eight months ago, in a letter to DFO,

MFLNRO unequivocally stated thatFraser steelhead populations “can nolonger sustain any incidental fishingmortality.” MFLNRO further urgedDFO to institute timing and gearchanges to Johnstone Strait and FraserRiver chum fisheries to address steel-head interception issues. In a nutshell, MFLNRO insisted that

instead of traditional gill nets andseines, the fisheries must becomeselective to allow for the safe releaseof by-catch. This was something thatlong needed to be said, something thatenlightened fisheries conservationgroups have been saying for decadesand represented the salvation of thesesteelhead. The fact that such a state-




ment came from a branch of theprovincial government was even moreastounding. Clearly MFLNRO had aplan.There’s no denying that “the plan,”

the sport fishing closures, inflicted adisproportionate burden of Frasersteelhead conservation on anglers,upper river First Nations and strug-gling interior B.C. towns like SpencesBridge. Fishery conservation clearlyneeds to be a shared responsibility;however, the focus of the province atthat time was to ensure the commer-cial industry adopted selective harvestmethods to safeguard the release ofincidental by-catch. Regrettably, thesport opening has signaled that no suchchange in harvesting methods is nownecessary, and no adjustments need tobe made to the aboriginal right to food,societal and ceremonial gill net fish-eries, which also have a detrimentaleffect on the steelhead. Unfortunately, interior Fraser steel-

head often travel the same time androute as Fraser chum, either throughJohnstone Strait (inside passage) oralong the west coast of VancouverIsland (outside) and into the FraserRiver on the journey to their natalstreams. The diversion rate of Frasersteelhead, either inside or outside, ispoorly understood. How exactly did DFO answer the

challenge of the MFLNRO plan? In theJohnstone Strait through lateSeptember and October, DFO autho-rized three gill net openings equaling123 hours of mixed stock non-selectiveeffort, some of which were smack ontop of any steelhead which may havemigrated through the inside passage.DFO assigns a by-catch mortality rateof 60 percent for these fisheries. Further, Johnstone Strait seines tar-

geting chum salmon were allowed 22hours of effort in areas 12 and 13 inearly to mid-October. The seines havea by-catch mortality rate of 25 percentaccording to DFO. Added to this mixof Johnstone Strait commercial fish-eries were numerous troll fisherieswith a by-catch mortality rate between10 to 26 percent. All of these commercial fisheries

were required to release—alive ordead—all steelhead incidentally cap-tured and were further required tohave operational revival boxes on

board. It’s not known at this time whatthe combined impact of all commercialfisheries might have had on co-migrat-ing steelhead—nor will it likely ever beknown with any degree of certainty—but clearly DFO didn’t buy into theplan. To make the murky piscatorial polit-

ical waters more turbid, after the sportfishing opening announcement onOctober 26th, Fraser River chumescapement continued to build and onOctober 31st, DFO identified a surplusof chum and unleashed the Frasercommercial fishing fleet at a time whensteelhead were still present in thelower system, likely to the chagrin ofprovincial steelhead managers. Whatfollowed were two "selective" (DFOterminology) commercial gill net open-ings (totaling 22 hours) and two abo-riginal economic opportunity non-selective fisheries (63 hours) targetingchum salmon in river. DFO terms the non-aboriginal com-

mercial gill net openings “selective” asthe nets employed are one half lengthof a standard gill net and the “soak”time, the actual time the nets are in thewater, is supposed to be 30 minutes.This methodology is called “short set,short net” and DFO assigns a by-catchmortality rate of 40 percent to thismethod (on the South Coast). It shouldbe noted that while the mortality rateassociated with this fishery appears tobe a considerable improvement overstandard gill nets, (as mentioned previ-ously, a 60 percent mortality rate) theattempt to rebrand gill nets as “selec-tive” would be laughable if the situa-tion weren’t so desperate. These commercial fisheries target

chum principally for their roe, whichcommands a high price in Japan andother Asian countries as both sujiko(whole roe) and ikura (individualeggs). The rest of the salmon carcasscan be used for pet food or fertilizer,but most often is discarded outright(drawing an interesting parallel toshark finning). Recent prices for ikuraare in the neighbourhood of $68 for 7.6ounces, which gives some idea of theeconomic forces challenging interiorFraser steelhead conservation. In reviewing the 2011-2012 SouthCoast Integrated Fishery ManagementPlan it’s readily apparent that suchplans do not adequately provide for theprotection of interior Fraser steelhead

from marine and Fraser River com-mercial fisheries. Within the Fraser River, the (DFO)

management objective is to protect80% of the interior Fraser steelheadrun with a 90% certainty.Operationally, this translates into thepotential opening of one Fraser Rivercommercial chum fishery prior toOctober 15th, with the only limit afterOctober 15th being the abundance ofchum salmon. (The historical peak ofFraser steelhead at Albion is October10th, the chum peak October 15th.)However, there continues to be con-cern for interior BC coho populations,and commercial fisheries may berestricted early September to mid tolate October as a result. The recent steelhead status update

from MFLNRO indicates that the peakof this year’s Fraser interior steelheadrun occurred Oct.14th and a review ofthe Albion chum test data also indi-cates that steelhead were still presentin the Fraser system as of Nov. 9thalthough it’s not clear whether thesefish were late summer runs or earlywinters. Clearly, management protec-tion of interior Fraser steelhead needsa significant upgrade as this year the“bulk” of the steelhead run had a one-day “excuse me” theoretical window ofopportunity to get past the chum nets. Instead of initiating recovery plan-

ning or a species at risk listing, theprovince apparently lowered or abol-ished conservation thresholds andreinstituted a targeted fishery oversteelhead populations at historic lows.In the short term, such an actionallows DFO to carry on as before—pan-dering to their clientele, too—businessas usual extracting the last drops ofeconomic blood possible from theresource, damn the consequences. Among steelhead sport fishers, wild

steelhead advocacy suffered yetanother split between those in disbe-lief of the situation, and thereforerefusing to participate, and thoseapparently chanting the mantra ofunlimited access at all costs. MFLNRO bailed big time on interior

Fraser steelhead. Hopefully MotherNature can step up because it doesn’tappear she’s going to get much help.



Ron Nanney is SW WashingtonRepresentative for the Wild SteelheadCoalition. The website is www.wild-steelheadcoalition.org.

Willapa Bay, situated onthe southwestWashington coast, iswell known for itsthriving oyster indus-

try and pristine, unpolluted waters.The second largest estuary on thePacific coast, its freshwater flows fromabout a half-dozen smallish streamsthat are home to historical populationsof steelhead and cutthroat trout, andChinook, coho, and chum salmon.Names such as Naselle, Nemah, Palix,and Willapa reflect the heritage of thearea, and the native peoples that weredependent on the abundant salmonruns before outside settlement beganin the 1850s.Unfortunately, decades of intensive

logging and overfishing have takentheir toll on the wild stocks in thebasin. Unlike their northern counter-parts on the Olympic Peninsula,Willapa Bay streams have few publiclands adjoining them. Nearly all of thewatersheds are surrounded by privateforestlands and suffer from habitatdegradation as a result. Decliningsalmon runs led to the construction ofhatcheries, with the first on the WillapaRiver (Forks Creek) constructed in1899, followed by facilities on theNaselle and Nemah by the 1950s.Hatchery production of Chinook andcoho was commonly supplementedwith eggs from out of basin stocks. Commercial fishing has historically

been the driving force in fisheriesmanagement in the basin, with conser-vation and preservation of wild stockscoming in a distant second. With notribal treaty obligations or ESA listedstocks, and abundant access for thecommercial fleet, the WashingtonDepartment of Fish and Wildlife(WDFW) has long considered the basinand it's hatchery programs to be theideal “salmon factory.” In addition to arobust gillnet fishery, Willapa salmonare harvested offshore in both U.S. and

Canadian waters, making these hatch-ery programs valuable bargainingchips in offshore salmon allocationnegotiations. Hatchery production of 7million Chinook and nearly 2 millioncoho have frequently resulted in hugesurplus returns. Poor fish collectionfacilities and high water events havealso led to high stray rates. While thesemassive out-plants of Chinook andcoho stocks have provided harvestopportunities for commercial fleets,the decades of intermingling wild andhatchery stocks on the spawning bedshas resulted in the near elimination ofthe native genes for these species.The independent Hatchery Scientific

Review Group (HSRG) completed itsassessment of Willapa Basin hatcherymanagement in March of 2004 and,recognizing that most of the naturallyspawning Chinook and coho were ofnon-native stock in these rivers, rec-ommended that hatchery programs besized appropriately, so that “naturalfish constitute an average of at leasttwo-thirds of the naturally spawningpopulation.” (HSRG, March, 2004,pages 81,92) In addition, it was recom-mended that rivers be identified withprimary populations of Chinook andcoho and that those populations bemanaged for wild fish recovery.Recovery, they believed, would beaccomplished by gradually decreasingthe numbers of hatchery fish spawningin the wild, with the long-term goal ofestablishing a locally adapted stock ofwild fish.As a result of the HSRG's recom-

mendations, and consistent withWDFW's 21st Century Salmon andSteelhead Initiative, the WDFW hasdeveloped a Willapa Bay managementplan that attempts to meet the manage-ment goals outlined by the HSRG.Naselle River Chinook and Willapa

River coho have been identified as“Primary Populations” to be managedfor wild fish recovery, requiring dra-matic reductions of hatchery releasesin those streams to achieve the goals ofreduced intermingling of hatchery andwild fish on the spawning beds. Thekey to this strategy is to maximize the

number of naturally spawned fishreturning to each stream and allow anappropriate number of hatchery fishupstream as supplementation. But,without facilities capable of control-ling hatchery straying, the numbers offish released and the harvest of hatch-ery fish are the only tools available tocontrol the ratio of wild and hatcheryfish on the spawning beds. Naselle River Chinook production

has been reduced to 500,000 from theprevious 3 million, and Willapa cohoproduction has been cut in half, from600,000 to 300,000. While this wouldappear to be a step in the right direc-tion, WDFW's unwillingness to losehatchery production resulted in theexploitation of a “loophole” in theHSRG's Report. By reducing hatcheryproduction of the identified “PrimaryPopulation” species at each hatchery, itwas determined that there were norestrictions on production of otherspecies in those watersheds.Therefore, lost production for thebasin could simply be transferred toone of the other Willapa hatcheries. Asa result, lost Chinook production atNaselle was transferred to the Nemahand Willapa hatcheries, and lost cohoproduction was transferred to Naselle.With this elaborate shell game, therewas no net loss of hatchery production.The Naselle hatchery alone is expectedto produce 1.4 million coho per year , astaggering number for such a smallwatershed. The pressure to harvestthese fish makes it unlikely that com-mercial seasons will be managed in away that ensures that wild fish escape-ment is large enough to promote recov-ery in the “Primary Population”streams.The steelhead has long been revered

as the prized recreational fish in theWillapa Basin. Viable populations ofwild fish can be found in nearly everystream, with the Willapa, North,Nemah, and Naselle rivers being themost well known. Modest hatcheryplants of Chambers Creek stocks(25,000) are still made in the Willapaand Naselle rivers, but are much



The Willapa Basin Salmon FactoryBy Ron Nanney

— Wild Steelhead Coalition —

http://www.wildsteelheadcoalition.org./

http://www.wildsteelheadcoalition.org./

reduced from the heydays of the 1970sand 80s, when huge hatchery plantsbrought hordes of fishermen to “justbelow the hatchery” fisheries. Wildstocks, while only a fraction of theirhistoric numbers, have been holdingon in relatively stable numbers sincethe adoption of wild steelhead releasein the late 1990s, with the entire basinnow averaging just under 4,000 fish peryear. There is cause for concern, however,that these numbers may not be sus-tainable given the pressures placedupon them by intense hatchery produc-tion of other salmonids. WDFW's“Salmon First” management tenden-cies still treat steelhead as second-class citizens. Without commercialinterests lobbying for their protection,steelhead are managed through recre-ational harvest and season settingguidelines alone, with little considera-tion for the pressures that are appliedby hatchery production of othersalmonids. Early components of thewild steelhead run, once common inNovember and December, are subject-ed to high rates of incidental by-catchin November gillnet fisheries targetinglate-run hatchery coho. This, combinedwith mortality from bait-allowed sportfisheries, makes recovery of this com-ponent difficult. Although limited information is avail-able concerning the ecological effectsof these hatchery programs on wildsteelhead, predation by hatcherysmolts on wild juveniles cannot be dis-missed. The April 2004 HSRG Reportdownplays this possibility stating,“The high potential for encountersbetween hatchery-reared predatorsand wild salmonid prey in freshwaterenvironments may be tempered by thefact that hatchery-reared smolts gen-erally spend very little time in riversbefore migrating to sea. Although weare unaware of any published data onresidence times of hatchery-rearedsmolts in freshwater, it is widelybelieved that the majority of these fishmigrate out of rivers very quickly.Recent work in Willapa Bay tributariessuggests that over 95% of steelhead,coho, and Chinook smolts leave theimmediate area of release within sev-eral hours.” (Riley et al. 2001 as citedin HSRG, April, 2004, page B52)However, the report further states

that, “The relative sizes of down-stream-migrating smolts or fry of dif-ferent species of salmonids inWashington suggest that several possi-ble predator/prey combinations arelikely to occur. Virtually allOnchorhynchus species could bepotential prey for larger salmonids infreshwater when they are small, butthose that migrate to sea at a small sizeare probably most vulnerable becausethey become concentrated in the down-stream reaches of rivers. The relativevulnerability of wild juvenilesalmonids to predation in freshwaterdepends on the release location ofhatchery fish; if fish are released nearthe mouth of the river, then migratingfry are probably most vulnerable topredation. Hatchery fish that arereleased further upstream mayencounter concentrations of all speciesof salmonid fry that occur in a given

river.”(HSRG, April, 2004, page B 55) While the possibility of predation

begs more research, wild steelheadface additional obstacles. Massivespringtime out-migrations of hatcheryfish attract huge concentrations ofpredatory birds to the estuary and,while hatchery fish make up the major-ity of their feast, wild fish undoubtedlyfall prey to the hordes of cormorants,Arctic terns, and gulls that swarm theestuary. And, while the numbers ofwild steelhead that succumb to preda-tion may be small in contrast to thenumbers of hatchery fish, the impact tothese stocks may be severe. Wild steelhead in the Willapa basin

are holding on for now, but conserva-tion and fishing groups must continueto pressure WDFW to give wild steel-head advocates a larger voice in hatch-ery management planning.

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