Sound science and reasoned thinking key
to restoring wild salmon stocks
Director, Jeffrey P. Koenings
November 11, 1999

Article from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer

By rejecting I-696 at the polls, state voters demonstrated not only compassion for Washington's fishing families but also an understanding of the real conservation issues involved in recovering our state's troubled wild salmon stocks.

While there is no denying that fishing once contributed to a shortage of salmon reaching the rivers to spawn, Washington's commercial and recreational fisheries have been tightly regulated in the past decade to protect weak and endangered stocks. Using coded wire tags, mass marking, genetic testing, and other scientific techniques, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and the tribes closely monitor wild salmon stocks and restrict fishing accordingly.

With conservation as our top priority, a third of the state's commercial fishers have taken advantage of the state's buy-back program and left the fishery. An even greater percentage of licenses are simply inactive. Recognizing that I-696 was really an attempt to reallocate the catch, not protect endangered stocks, voters wisely refused to make scapegoats of hard-working folks who care as much about preserving wild salmon as anyone.

Now that the smoke has cleared, we need to focus on the real issues facing salmon recovery, beginning with the loss of vital spawning and rearing habitat.

Science points to one unavoidable fact: At some point, it doesn't matter how many wild salmon evade hooks and nets if their offspring just die in the rivers. Reversing that trend is the biggest challenge in recovering weak salmon stocks today.

Field tests conducted by WDFW have revealed that mortality rates for salmon eggs and fry in some western Washington rivers run as high as 97 percent. The cause of these high mortality rates is no secret: poor habitat. Heavy siltation, pollution, elevated water temperatures, scouring floods -- all are at least partly due to the effects of urban development, deforestation, agricultural practices and efforts to keep rivers from overflowing onto the flood plain.

Of course, many rivers are becoming blocked to salmon migration altogether. On the Columbia River, dams have left only 52 of 550 miles of free-flowing water available for spawning. Seventy percent of Puget Sound estuariane wetlands have been lost to development, and thousands of miles of stream habitat have been blocked to returning salmon by impassable culverts and other obstructions.

Fortunately, policy makers and people throughout the state are recognizing the devastation these developments have wreaked on wild salmon and other natural resources. Today, there are plans to tear down outmoded obstructions like the Condit and White River dams, while major efforts are under way to restore estuariane habitat on the Nisqually and Skagit rivers.

In addition, WDFW has been working with the tribes, local governments, landowners, fishers and other volunteers to rehabilitate rivers and creeks as funding allows. Dickerson Creek in Kitsap County is just one example of what can be accomplished with this kind of teamwork. Working together with the Suquamish tribe, the county, the U.S. Navy and other participants, a team from the WDFW worked two years to restore habitat and reconfigure a culvert that had previously blocked salmon passage.

The result? A badly depleted stock of coho salmon, along with a major chum run, has been revitalized. Thousands of salmon are now drawn up the stream to spawn every year.

Similar projects have succeeded in restoring miles of riparian habitat throughout the state, but thousands more need urgent attention. Fortunately, lawmakers at all levels are stepping up to the challenge.

At the request of Gov. Gary Locke, the 1999 Legislature earmarked $37 million in state funds to fix impassible culverts, screen irrigation diversions, and make other improvements to salmon habitat. In addition, Congress is debating a broad-based measure that would add millions more to the state's habitat restoration fund, which will be administered by a new state Salmon Recovery Funding Board (SRFB) created by the state Legislature.

This new investment presents an opportunity to make some real headway in what must be a long-term effort to restore wild salmon stocks. As a member of the SRFB, I have urged my fellow board members to aim high in setting overall goals for Washington's salmon-recovery effort.

Troubled stocks will never be restored to healthy levels if we aim merely to meet the minimum requirements necessary to remove salmon stocks from the federal endangered species list. From all my years as a fisheries biologist, I know that there are simply too many variables – from natural disasters to human errors -- that could return a stock to endangered status if we cut the margin too thin.

I also have urged members of the SRFB to base project funding decisions on solid scientific data. The resources available to the board represent a major commitment to salmon recovery, but there will never be enough money to address every river and stream in need of restoration.

We at WDFW have found through our own experience that investing in a one- mile stretch of river can sometimes result in a greater return than rehabilitating a longer stretch somewhere else. It all depends on the conditions, including such factors as water temperature, predators and the slope of the streambed.

To help maximize our efforts, WDFW and the tribes have developed a computer database to guide decisions about where to focus our own habitat-restoration efforts. This scientific tool, known as the Salmon and Steelhead Habitat Inventory and Assessment Project (SSHIAP), provides a section-by-section snapshot of habitat conditions in streams and rivers throughout western Washington. SSHIAP is adaptable for statewide use and could provide a solid scientific basis for determining which habitat-restoration projects are likely to show the greatest returns as the funding board considers all the options.

At WDFW, we have used science to structure fisheries that avoid intercepting weak wild stocks, while allowing the citizens of this state to catch hundreds of thousands of surplus hatchery fish not needed for reproduction. Science has also shown us how to operate hatcheries that not only avoid interfering with wild salmon but also propagate wild stocks.

Now sound science, combined with reasoned thinking, can help us make informed decisions about habitat restoration, the biggest challenge facing our state in recovering wild salmon.