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2002 State of Salmon ReportThe Salmon Recovery Planning Act (ESSB 2496), passed in 1998, requires the Governor's Salmon Recovery Office to submit a "state of salmon" report biennially, beginning in December 2000. The 2002 State of Salmon Report is presented here, in four parts that together capture important activities the Governor's Office and state agencies have undertaken to recover salmon. As a first step to restore salmon, in 1999 the Joint Natural Resources Cabinet developed the Statewide Strategy to Recover Salmon: Extinction is Not an Option. The next year, state agencies developed detailed action plans describing their salmon recovery efforts to implement the Strategy. A Salmon Recovery Scorecard for monitoring agency progress in these areas also was published. These 2002 publications are meant to report progress we have made in our efforts to recover salmon. They also respond to the Legislature, federal review, public comment, the Independent Science Panel, and what we have learned from our own experience. There are four parts:
The urgency to save wild salmon is tempered by how long it takes to see progress. The life cycle of salmon from freshwater to saltwater and back generally is three to five years; it may take our commitment through several salmon generations to know if we are doing the right things for enduring results. The challenge we all face is making this complex and potentially confusing situation clear enough so that we may make wise choices about the future of salmon. While our work to recover salmon is far from finished, we continue to stand firm behind our vision: to restore salmon, steelhead and trout to healthy, harvestable levels and improve the habitats upon which fish rely. Note: Some files listed here are presented in Adobe PDF. If you don't have the Acrobat Reader already installed on your system, a free download is available at the Adobe Web site. |