U.S. , Canada Cut New Harvest Deal To Save More Chinook  

Northwest Fishletter

May 28, 2008

U.S. and Canadian negotiators announced May 22 a new, 10-year agreement for reducing harvest impacts by B.C. and Alaska fishermen on chinook stocks from Washington and Oregon , including some listed for ESA protection.

It comes with a hefty price tag -- $30 million paid to Canada for reducing their harvest by 30 percent, and $7 million to Alaska for reducing their chinook impacts in the state's southeast region by 15 percent.

The agreement, which still must be OK'd by both governments, also paves the way for the possibility of a mark-selective ocean fishery off Vancouver Island , which could increase wild ESA-listed spawner numbers in Northwest rivers.

"I appreciate the work of all parties in reaching this new pact, which will lead to fishery-management measures that restore and protect one of Washington 's most important natural resources," said Washington Gov. Chris Gregoire. "This is good news not just for current Washington residents but for future generations."

According to her press release, the agreement, if approved, would result in approximately one million fewer chinook salmon harvested in Canada and Alaska over the 10-year life of the pact, with about half of the saved chinook coming from Washington and Oregon waters.

The trim to Alaska harvest should allow more listed fall chinook to return to the Snake River and more listed springers back to the Willamette , while adding to returns of unlisted upriver brights heading to the Hanford Reach, and fall chinook stocks from Vancouver Island .

"The reductions in catch in northern ocean fisheries will increase annual returns of summer and fall chinook to the Upper Columbia River by 3-7 percent, a significant improvement from the 1999 agreement," said Olney Patt Jr., Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission executive director and U.S. Tribal Commissioner on the Pacific Salmon Commission.

The Canadian cutbacks should also improve returns of ESA-listed wild tules in the lower Columbia and Puget Sound chinook.

"With this agreement, we make a substantial down payment in our efforts to return Washington 's weak wild chinook salmon populations back to sustainable levels," said WDFW Director Jeff Koenings. "By allowing more salmon back to Washington 's waters, this precautionary management agreement provides us a unique opportunity to fulfill our stewardship obligations to future generations. We cannot waste this opportunity."

The new agreement also calls for $3 million from the United States to Canada to evaluate and consider implementing mark-selective fisheries for chinook salmon; $7 million to Washington state from the U.S. federal government to improve the productivity of ESA-listed Puget Sound wild chinook salmon through habitat improvements; and approximately $15 million divided between the two nations for improving salmon fisheries research and data collection.

The 18-month negotiation also spells out new arrangements for coho, chum and transboundary rivers.

"From my position as Executive Secretary, it has been particularly gratifying to observe the Commission's progress throughout these difficult negotiations, and to see that the Commission now functions well enough to achieve this enormous success," said Don Kowal, executive secretary of the Pacific Salmon Commission.

"There was a time, prior to the 1999 Agreement, when this kind of success simply was not achievable by the Commission," Kowal continued. "The new agreement is designed to provide for effective conservation of the resource, and to address the interests of the people affected by it."

Svend Brandt-Erichsen, a Seattle attorney who has represented several fishing-conservation groups in litigation challenging status-quo salmon harvests, was encouraged by the new harvest regime, but still had reservations about its future effectiveness.

"It is encouraging to see that Canada appears willing to experiment with mark-selective fishing in the West Coast Vancouver Island fishery," said Brandt-Erichsen, "and that the harvest in the WCVI fishery will be reduced significantly from what was allowed under the 1999 treaty. This should help Puget Sound and Lower Columbia native stocks, in particular. The reductions in the Southeast Alaska fishery also are likely to benefit weaker Canadian stocks.

"However, significant harvest of ESA-listed chinook would occur under this treaty," he said, "and we have not yet seen an evaluation of the impacts of that harvest. I expect we will have to wait for NMFS' biological opinion for that information."

The brunt of the Canadian harvest cuts is expected to be borne by the 160-boat commercial troll fleet that plies the waters off Vancouver Island . Salmon licenses for that area are worth around $100,000 apiece on the current market, but not all of the funding to be supplied by the U.S. is expected to buy out fishermen. Some of it will likely go to help businesses adversely affected by the cuts as well.

The troll fleet is last in line for chinook allocation, behind native fishers and sportfishers, a policy that began in the 1990s after a major overhaul of B.C. fisheries management, and it could doom the fleet, said Kathy Scarfo of the West Coast Trollers Association. "We take the full hit," she told the Toronto-based newspaper The Globe and Mail. "So if there are 100,000 fish [to be caught] off the west coast of Vancouver Island, the recreational fleet will take 50,000, the natives will get 5,000 ... and if they take 30 percent off the top that leaves 15,000 [for the troll fleet] and that would support about 15 boats."

The Vancouver Island troll fleet fishes earlier than during previous harvest regimes to keep from hammering B.C.'s own weak chinook stocks. In 2006, they caught only 104,000 chinook, but in so doing, they hooked more Columbia River tules and Puget Sound chinook than the old harvest model used by the two countries had estimated.

But the model, like the treaty, needs an overhaul. It tends to underestimate abundance when stocks are building, and overestimate abundance when it is declining.

Some of the money generated by the recent talks will go to improve it.

The Pacific Salmon Commission's chinook technical committee found its estimate of overall chinook abundance was lower than thought last year when they pegged allocations. That means Alaskans caught about 60,000 more chinook than they should have, given post-season abundance indexes. That's about 20 percent of their allowable catch of treaty chinook. Northern B.C. trollers also caught about 35,000 chinook more than real abundance would have suggested, and Vancouver Island fishers caught about 20,000 more than the post-season analysis would have allowed. -Bill Rudolph

The following links were mentioned in this story:

Annex IV, Amended Chapters

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