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Wild Salmon Likely Doomed by More Talk by Pete Soverel and David Moskowitz Daily Astorian, March 5, 2020

Columbia and Snake rivers are awash in factory hatchery fish -- over 140 million hatchery fish
are released annually in Columbia-Snake basin, at great expense.

Regional fishery managers now protect hatchery fish to ensure brood stock needs are met, all while failing to set and meet spawning escapement criteria for the wild salmon and steelhead returning to miles of functional spawning habitat throughout the Columbia and Snake basins.

Neither the draft environmental impact statement nor the letter makes any serious recommendations for effective changes in hatchery practices, despite decades of scientific research documenting the problems the hatchery system has caused.

Neither address present and past practices which are contributing to sharp and ongoing declines in wild stocks. Neither addresses the ongoing negative impact of excessive marine harvest in the mixed stock, nonselective fisheries in Alaska and British Columbia -- fisheries that are ruining the stock structure of Columbia and Snake river Chinook and helping to drive southern resident killer whales to extinction as well.

The draft EIS and the carefully crafted letter -- with their press statements and platitudes -- will not advance wild fish recovery unless there is explicit action that reforms marine and freshwater harvest regimes, as well as the current hatchery-industrial complex aimed to protect Endangered Species Act-listed wild fish.

The collaborative letter may represent a significant shift in effort, but unless it is built on a shared commitment to recovering wild salmon and steelhead, it contributes to avoiding responsibility for achievable solutions rather than creating a clear, defined pathway and timetable towards any achievable future success.

The failure of the draft EIS and the joint letter to specifically address wild salmon and steelhead is depressing and illustrative of the uphill struggle the region's wild fish will continue to face.

Thirty years ago, tribes and conservation organizations had to submit petitions listing Snake River salmon under the Endangered Species Act because the federal agencies would not take action to prevent the extinction of sockeye and Chinook returning to the Snake River.

Those same federal agencies have now proposed -- for the fifth time -- some extremely modest tweaks to the system of dams and reservoirs that have nearly ruined the West's greatest rivers and our wild salmon and steelhead.

This repeated federal ineptitude has resulted in a collaborative call for political leadership from both conservation organizations and utility companies who signed a letter calling for a regional dialogue to solve the Columbia River's fish issues

Sadly, that letter -- and the new 5,000-page federal plan -- are almost completely devoid of a commitment to recover wild salmon and steelhead -- the term “wild” notably absent.

The failure to specifically address wild salmon and steelhead recovery whitewashes the dire condition of Endangered Species Act-listed wild stocks of salmon and steelhead, most which are trending sharply downward with some stocks at high risk of imminent extinction.

It also fails to address one of the region's most significant problems in achieving recovery -- the fact that the Columbia and Snake rivers are awash in factory hatchery fish -- over 140 million hatchery fish are released annually in Columbia-Snake basin, at great expense -- with few examples of positive conservation results and abundant evidence that releases harm wild fish.