Salmon

"It does not require a majority to prevail,
but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people's minds."
--Samuel Adams - Leader in our Fight for Independence

Salmon in Court

Salmon Delisting

Return of the Salmon

Species vs. Species

"In 1998, Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife personnel were videotaped using baseball bats to kill thousands of Oregon coastal coho salmon at a hatchery in the Alsea River basin."

"But in this case the purpose of what attorney Russ Brooks of the Pacific Legal Foundation calls the "wholesale slaughter" of the fish was to eliminate all hatchery salmon from the Alsea River because they were a "threat" to 108"so-called `wild' fish.""

Fish Clubbing To Proceed

November issue of The Loggers World
"The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife intends to have hatchery workers use clubs and electricity to euthanize tens of thousands of surplus hatchery salmon. It was the videotaping of fish clubbing on the Alsea River that ultimately led to filing the lawsuit that Judge Hogan recently decided. The Oregon State Legislature attempted to address this issue and passed a bill that would have made fish clubbing illegal but Governor Kitzhaber vetoed it. A lawsuit was also filed in state court challenging the clubbing, but a state judge upheld the department's right to club fish.

U.S. court of appeals keeps fish protection

12/15/01 The Oregonian

JONATHAN BRINCKMAN

Oregon coastal coho are again on the federal endangered species list -- at least temporarily -- because of a Friday appeals court decision.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco issued a one-sentence statement late Friday saying that it would consider an appeal by a coalition of conservation groups challenging a Sept. 10 decision to delist coho by U.S. District Judge Michael R. Hogan of Eugene.

Hogan had removed coho from federal protection because the National Marine Fisheries Service, he said, had "arbitrary and capriciously" treated wild and hatchery salmon differently when it protected only wild salmon as threatened. His decision sent shock waves through the Pacific Northwest, where multiple runs of salmon enjoy federal protection at public expenditure.

The appeals court Friday said Hogan's ruling would be stayed until the appeal is decided.

Though federal protections for wild Oregon coastal coho were lifted at the time of Hogan's ruling, state protections have remained in place. Now, with Friday's appeals court action, Oregon coho are again federally protected, and killing or harming them is a federal crime, punishable by prison sentences and fines of up to $25,000.

The 9th Circuit decision is a significant victory for conservation groups. An attorney for the conservationists said it could take a year or more for the appeal to be decided.

Conservationists had called for the Bush administration to appeal Hogan's ruling and were disappointed when it did not.

"The Ninth Circuit prevented the sacrifice of wild Oregon coast coho by the Bush administration and the National Marine Fisheries Service," said Patti Goldman, an attorney with Earthjustice in Seattle, the legal organization representing eight conservation groups appealing the ruling. "All wild imperiled salmon, including Oregon coho, now remain protected."

The U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management had announced after Hogan's ruling that they would allow to go forward 28 timber sales that had been stopped by the coho listing. Those sales are now stopped again until the appeals court rules.

"This is great news," said Glen Spain, the Northwest director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "It returns protection to all coho along the coast so we no longer have a big hole in our safety net."

The ruling does not mean coastal coho will remain federally protected. For one thing, the appeal outcome is uncertain. Also, the National Marine Fisheries Service, when it said in early November that the Bush administration would not appeal Hogan's ruling, announced that it was launching a review of federal hatchery policy.

The Fisheries Service said then that it would review 23 runs of salmon and steelhead to see if they should be removed from the endangered species list. Both those reviews remain in effect. The Fisheries Service listed Oregon coastal coho as threatened in 1998 under the Endangered Species Act.

Bill Moshofsky, vice president of Oregonians in Action and a supporter of the Hogan ruling, called the appeals court decision "unfortunate." Still, he expects that federal protection will be removed from many salmon runs because of the Fisheries Service review, regardless of what the appeals court rules.

"I don't believe this decision changes the basic fact that these rulings have been discredited," Moshofsky said.

You can reach Jonathan Brinckman at 503-221-8190 or by e-mail at jbrinckman@news.oregonian.com.

Petitions for Delisting the Salmon

The following excerpts are from The Oregonian 10/24/01
The fisheries service has received a wave of delisting petitions since Hogan's decision. Washington farm groups and others petitioned last week to remove federal protection from 12 salmon and steelhead stocks. Buchal has petitioned to remove protections for 10 stocks, including the Willamette River chinook and steelhead.

"It was never legitimate for the federal government to seize control of protecting fish," Buchal said. "If you take account of hatchery fish, there aren't any endangered salmon."

Buchal's petition would remove protection from the salmon in the Klamath River that helped cause 1200 farmers to lose their private irrigation water rights in the summer of 2001. editor

Salmon Return

The 3 million salmon that came back to the Columbia River in 2002 represent the strongest run since 1938. Next year's is projected to be another good return, but no one is proclaiming salmon victory.

Drought left little water in rivers, where young salmon spend up to two years before migrating to the ocean. California's energy crisis led the Bonneville Power Administration to declare an emergency, diverting what water there was - and the young salmon in it - to turbines and away from spillways in the federal hydroelectric dams on the Columbia. The result was the lowest downstream survival rates - as low as 19 percent for mid-Columbia steelhead.

This graph appears in a salmon recovery newsletter in October, 2005 which was published by the Federal Caucus of agencies responsible for the recovery.

Since there was a steady supply of salmon for almost 50 years followed by bumper crops in late eighties and again in 2001-05, why do the feds and the greens think they are endangered? Even if the numbers are lower than they might have been before the dams the trend is steady or upward, just the opposite of trends for endangered or threatened species. Is this about salmon or the economies of the west?

The Court Battles Never End

In June,05, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals refused to grant a stay of a lower court decision that ordered the Caucus to spill more water over the dams. This is believed by the court to be necessary for salmon recovery. The Caucus has appealed that decision. The federal agencies will now have to comply with the lower court order at least until the Ninth Circuit makes a decision on their appeal. Notice that the Ninth granted a stay when the enviros were appealing a lower court decision that went against them.

This page was last updated on 04/13/08

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