Wild Salmonid Policy

Q: What is the Wild Salmonid Policy and its goal?

A: The Wild Salmonid Policy guides fish managers who regulate fish harvest and manage hatcheries to better protect wild runs, especially those likely to be listed as endangered or threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act. The Policy's goal is to restore Washington's stocks of wild salmon and steelhead to healthy, harvestable runs by:

• Managing commercial and sport fishing to ensure enough wild runs eturn to spawn while providing fishing opportunities where possible.
• Producing and releasing hatchery salmon and steelhead without harming wild fish runs
• Describing healthy habitat conditions fish need to survive in rivers, lakes and streams.

Q: Who adopted the Wild Salmonid Policy?

A: The Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission adopted the policy in December, 1997. It was developed in consultation with the public and Western Washington Treaty Tribes. The policy is not a regulation and does not grant the Department any new authority.

The Legislature in 1993 directed the Department of Fish and Wildlife to develop the policy to protect the state's wild salmonids, which include salmon, steelhead, and trout.

Q: Who is responsible for implementing the policy?"

A: The policy guides the actions of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife which regulates commercial and sport fishing in state waters and manages numerous hatcheries across the state. The habitat standards must be implemented by various federal and state agencies, local governments, businesses and private individuals. Gov. Gary Locke's Natural Resource Cabinet is developing a strategy to protect and restore fish habitat.

Q: What difference does the Wild Salmonid Policy make for wild fish?

A: WDFW is continuing its efforts to ensure enough fish from each wild stock survive the hooks and nets arrayed from Alaska to Oregon to produce the next generation. Interbreeding between wild and hatchery fish is minimized to protect genetic codes which enable salmon and steelhead to migrate to the sea and return. WDFW also is ensuring planted hatchery stocks do not compete with wild fish for food and other life needs.

Q: What difference does the Wild Salmonid Policy make for Washington citizens?

A: For some years, commercial and sport fishers will focus harvests on marked hatchery salmon and only the healthy stocks of wild fish. Fishing seasons may be restricted in some favorite areas, particularly in the ocean and northern Puget Sound, where healthy and unhealthy salmon stocks mix. Washington's citizens and businesses also will be asked to take better care of habitats important to wild salmonids.

Q: What has happened since the policy's adoption?

A: As a direct result of this policy, the 1998 and future salmon fishing seasons are being regulated strictly based on fish managers' best estimates of the timing and routes taken by migrating wild salmon. Those seasons are designed to protect wild fish while focusing fisheries on hatchery fish and healthy wild stocks. In 1998, fishers are facing some of the most restrictive seasons in history. The Wild Salmon Policy requires:

• Placing salmon conservation before economic profit and interstate or international fish disputes.
• Implementing fishing regulations that will allow more large wild salmon to return to the spawning gravel. Large salmon produce more eggs and bury them more deeply in gravel where they are less likely to be destroyed by floods.
• Managing fisheries to help more wild salmon reach and utilize all viable spawning habitat in the watersheds.
• Monitoring commercial catches at sea to ensure weak wild stocks are protected.

  The nearly 100 hatcheries in the state system are shifting from high-volume fish production facilities to cost-efficient, high-tech tools in the effort to restore wild runs. For example, hatchery fish now are being released as smolts--the stage when they migrate to the ocean. That means they spend little time in streams competing with wild fish for food. These salmon are produced from stocks genetically similar to local wild stocks. Eggs from weak wild runs are taken from rivers and hatched in hatcheries so more small fish will survive to migrate to the ocean. Hatcheries are marking millions of chinook and coho so fishers can identify them easily and harvest them while releasing wild salmon.