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The Osprey • Issue No THA JouErnal Pu blOished byS the SPteelheRad ComEmittee Y International Federation of Fly Fishers SM Dedicated to the Preservation of Wild Steelhead • Issue No. 81 MAY 2015 Faith in Nature: The Missing Element in Salmon Management and Mitigation Programs by Jim Lichatowich and Richard N. Williams — Alder Fork Consulting and The College of Idaho — Jim Lichatowich provides fisheries ing on salmon management and recov - Columbia River Federal Power sys - consulting services through his firm ery in the Pacific Northwest during the tem, the preparation of which was Alder Fork Consulting in Columbia 90s believed that the ESA listings imposed by the ESA, has been rejected City, Oregon and is former Assistant would shake the foundation of salmon by the courts four times and the most Chief of Fisheries for the Oregon recent one may be on the way to a fifth Department of Fish and Wildlife. The salmon crisis has rejection. The recovery prescriptions Richard N. Williams, PhD has worked in the BiOps have been too close to the on Columbia River salmon and steel - failed to cause status quo for the courts to take the head issues for over 30 years. He is the proposed solutions seriously. Senior Conservation Advisor to the introspection and The status of salmon remains a crisis. International Federation of Fly Fishers There is no other way to view the list - and is a member of the Steelhead critique by salmon ings under ESA. Unfortunately, howev - Committee. He lives in Eagle Idaho. er, it is a crisis that has failed to cause Both authors have served on numer - managers of what led introspection and critique by salmon ous salmon management technical managers of the record leading up to panels. to the ESA listings. the listings. This failure is, in part, due to impediments to the incorporation of he 1990s were a calamitous management enough to change the sta - current science into salmon manage - period for salmon and steel - tus quo. We were wrong. ESA rules ment and mitigation programs head management. The cen - intended to improve the salmon’s sta - (Lichatowich and Williams 2009), a tury-long decline in abun - tus were bureaucratized, ritualized general lack of historical perspective dance reached alarming and normalized to the point that they among salmon managers (Pauly 1995), lTevels leading to the listings of twenty- and to a pathology resulting from a became part of the status quo, result - eight Evolutionarily Significant Units ing in little real change. Case in Point: command and control approach to (ESU) 1 under the federal Endangered the Biological Opinion (BiOp) for the salmon management (Holling and Species Act (ESA). Many of us work - Continued on Page 4 FAITH IN CHAIR’S CORNER: STEELHEAD & A MCKENZIE RIVER VICTORIES ON THE IN THIS NATURE KINDRED SPIRITS WARMING CLIMATE WILD CHINOOK EAST FORK LEWIS — PAGE 1 — — PAGE 3 — — PAGE 9 — — PAGE 13 — — PAGE 17 — ISSUE: 2 MAY 2015 THE OSPREY • ISSUE NO. 81 FROM THE PERCH — EDITOR’S MESSAGE Believing in Nature’s Bounty by Jim Yuskavitch THE OSPChRair EY Norm Ploss very wild fish advocate is have rejected the idea that Nature can well aware of how histori - supply enough fish on its own to sup - Editor cally abundant salmon and port prosperous fisheries, may be Jim Yuskavitch steelhead once were. They unaware of how many fish the rivers crowded the rivers during they manage once produced and rely Contributing Editors Espawning runs and easily supported almost solely on the technical fix of sustainable fisheries for Native hatcheries. To make matters worse, Pete Soverel • Bill Redman American tribes along with commer - that view and philosophy tends to be Doug Schaad • Norm Ploss cial fishermen and sport anglers. And passed down through generations of William Atlas • Schuyler Dunphy as every wild fish advocate also knows, salmon managers. Scott Hagen that incredible abundance is largely What is to be done? It won’t be easy Contributors gone and river systems that once pro - to convince salmon managers that they Jim Lichatowich • Richard N. Williams duced many thousands of fish may now continue to rely on a flawed conceptual Norm Ploss • Lisa Crozier produce just hundreds, or dozens, and foundation, and hatcheries in particu - in too many cases, none at all. lar. But there are examples out there, Michelle McClure • Dave Thomas But that is not because Nature is no such as Osoyoos Lake sockeye recov - Arlen Thomason • Steve Jones longer capable of producing abun - ery, that don’t rely on traditional mod - Layout dance, as Jim Lichatowich and Rick els that should stimulate a rethink of Jim Yuskavitch Williams observe in their important how we can again return natural abun - cover story in this issue of The Osprey . dance to our salmon and steelhead Letters To The Editor It is because many salmon managers streams. The Osprey welcomes submissions and letters to the editor. Submissions may be Visit The Osprey on the Web at: made electronically or by mail. The Osprey www.ospreysteelhead.org P.O. Box 1228 Sisters, OR 97759-1228 [email protected] The Osprey Blog: (541) 549-8914 www.ospreysteelheadnews.blogspot.com The Osprey is a publication of The International Federation of Fly Fishers and is published three times a year. All Join the International materials are copyrighted and require Federation of Fly Fishers permission prior to reprinting or other Invest in the future of “all fish, all waters,” with a use. The Osprey © 2015 membership in the IFFF — a nonprofit ISSN 2334-4075 organization. Your membership helps make us a stronger advocate for the sport you love! The International Federation of Fly Fishers is a unique non-profit organization con - cerned with sport fishing and fisheries International Federation of Fly Fishers Your membership The International Federation of Fly Fishers (IFFF) 5237 US Hwy 89 South, Suite 11 includes a subscription supports conservation of all fish in all waters. IFFF has a Livingston, MT 59047-9176 to Flyfisher, the long standing commitment to magazine of IFFF. solving fisheries problems at the grass roots. By charter and incli - nation, IFFF is organized from ❑ Name ________________________________ the bottom up; each of its 360+ SM $35 Individual clubs, all over North America ❑ Address _______________________________ and the world, is a unique and $15 Youth (under 18) self-directed group. The grass ❑ City ________________________ State _____ roots focus reflects the reality $25 Senior (65 and older) Zip ____________ Phone_________________ that most fisheries solutions ❑ must come at that local level. $45 Family E-Mail ________________________________ ❑ Join by phone at 406-222-9369 Payment Enclosed THE OSPREY IS PRINTED ON RECYCLED PAPER or www.fedflyfishers.org USING SOY INK THE OSPREY • ISSUE NO. 81 MAY 2015 3 Kindred Spirits CHAIR’S CORNER by Norm Ploss — Chair, Steelhead Committee — efore and since my hip Drought. “Gov. Jerry Brown’s decision demands for scarce water resources) replacement I’ve had plen - to require 25 percent mandatory urban and based on expert judgment”, the ty of time to follow a broad conservation while ignoring agricul - authors “assessed the most likely spectrum of news. This ture — which consumes 80 percent of future of wild salmon runs in the comes to me naturally by developed water supply — has been Central Valley in 2100.” They “posed Btraining and personal interest. Some of widely criticized. But most people seven open-ended questions to senior that news relates directly to fisheries barely are aware that the heaviest bur - salmon science and policy experts in and some relates importantly but tan - den to conserve water is on our federal and state agencies; local, gentially. Good news is out there some - beloved San Francisco Bay estuary — regional, and national organizations; where, but negative news is easy to and as a result the Bay may experience non-governmental organizations; and find: a wave of species extinctions in the universities. With a promise of com - coming months and years.” plete and permanent anonymity, these • New twist to the Chambers Creek experts provided answers. Most [Washington] Steelhead story. NMFS is experts concluded that by 2100 wild moving from a Draft EIS (years in salmon in the Central Valley will be progress) backwards to a Draft EA. extirpated or minimally abundant if Fish conservation advocates argue current trends continue.” that only through the process of com - pleting a full EIS can NOAA adequate - • A bill has been introduced in the ly evaluate the cumulative effects of House of Representatives that would all Puget Sound hatchery programs on amend the Magnuson-Stevens Act in threatened and endangered species detrimental ways. The act governs including Puget Sound's wild steel - marine fisheries management in the head. United States. Representative Don Young (R-Alaska) introduced H.R. • Steelhead Summit Alliance re: Skagit President Theodore Roosevelt and natu - 1335, the misleadingly named River. April 18th meeting at the ralist John Muir at Yosemite Valley, “Strengthening Fishing Communities University of Washington. The Skagit, California in 1903. and Increasing Flexibility in Fisheries once home to returns of 100,000 wild Management Act,” which would steelhead and a favorite destination • An article by a pair of authors from reverse years of progress made in US for many anglers, has been reduced to Oregon State University published in fisheries management. less than four percent of its historical San Francisco Estuary & Watershed abundance, as described by biologist Science [13(1)]. Forecasting the Most • Lastly as I get to the point of this col - Nick Gayeski of the Wild Fish Likely Status of Wild Salmon in the umn, the articles in this current issue Conservancy. Yet according to California Central Valley in 2100 . of The Osprey , without subtlety, high - Gayeski, the river has lost only a third “Since the mid-1800s the light the perilous conditions wild of its productive habitat since the Sacramento–San Joaquin river system salmon and steelhead today as we face early 19th century.
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