The State of Salmon Report

Harvest

"We are entering a new era in the way we manageand think about our state's fisheries resources."

Dr. Jeffrey Koenings, Washington
Department of Fish and Wildlife Director

our goal

Fish harvest management actions
protect wild salmon.

our challenge

Fishing has been a way of life for Washington people for thousands of years. For local tribes, salmon were both sustenance and spiritual equals in the web of life. For immigrant settlers, Washington's abundant waters were an opportunity to sustain fishing traditions, and to build new lives and communities in the far frontier of the American west. Fishing-especially fishing for salmon- has also been one of the defining recreational experiences of growing up in Washington for millions of youngsters over many generations.

Needless to say, cooking and eating salmon are a signature of life in the Northwest. In any gathering of people, a stranger can always strike up a conversation simply by asking about the best way to cook this fish.

Salmon have a high profile, and for many who live here, fishing has been considered a major cause of their decline. One early response to the decline was to build hatcheries to produce more fish. But even the most productive hatcheries in the world cannot make up for the continuing shrinkage in the amount of clean, cold water and unobstructed streams accessible to migrating salmon.

While hatchery fish sustained-and in some cases increased- the fish available for harvest, the abundance of hatchery fish masked the problems of dwindling and degraded freshwater habitat for wild fish. It also created another problem. When fishers caught hatchery fish, they were at times mixed with wild salmon stocks. The result is we over-harvested wild fish that were in trouble.

Line chart of Chinook and Coho catch in Washington Ocean Fisheries

Since fishers couldn't distinguish between wild and hatchery fish, fisheries managers had to take action to protect wild fish. By regulation, chinook harvest in Washington ocean fisheries had to be reduced by 91 percent in the past 26 years; coho harvests were reduced by 76 percent. In the mid-1990s, the ocean chinook sport season was cancelled altogether because there were so few wild fish left.

Fishing seasons also became shorter and shorter as conservation became more and more urgent. This caused economic devastation to fishing communities. The number of commercial fishing licenses has been reduced by 55 percent in the last 25 years, in part because of a license buy back program, and in part because fishers simply gave up and went out of business.

our progress

We are finding new ways to catch hatchery fish and protect wild fish. The goal of changes in fishing practices has been to find ways to discriminate between healthy, abundant stocks of salmon (including, of course, hatchery salmon), and weak, threatened or endangered stocks of wild salmon. Several changes have contributed to this goal.

Wild salmon and hatchery salmon look alike-or at least they did until the mid-1990s, when hatchery workers and volunteers began to clip the adipose fins (a fin that fish don't need) of hatchery fish. This simple measure has meant fishers can tell the difference between wild fish and hatchery fish. Where wild stocks are in trouble, fishers can look at their catch, and return wild salmon-the salmon with unclipped adipose fins-to the water. This simple measure can make a life-or-death difference to an endangered salmon run.
Fin clipping is not yet universal in hatchery operations, but it has become a very important part of the movement toward more selective fishing that protects wild salmon from over-harvest. One hundred percent of coho salmon and steelhead produced in Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife hatcheries are clipped, and about 40 percent of the chinook are clipped.
Returning wild fish to the water only works if those fish are not injured or killed when they are caught. That's why new kinds of fishing gear, such as tangle nets and barbless hooks, are being developed that don't injure fish.
Commercial fishers using purse seines (a kind of net that encircles fish) are now required to sort their catch and release wild chinook.
Fish runs are monitored throughout the season to make sure that actual runs match the forecasts. If they don't, fishing is stopped.
Enforcement of fishing regulations has been increased. Newly-formed Department of Fish and Wildlife enforcement detachments have increased compliance with state fishing rules to over 90 percent in the first year of service on the state's coastal waters.

Thanks to a strong return of hatchery fish and improved ocean conditions, the Lake Washington sockeye fishery opened for the first time in four years on Independence Day 2000. It's believed to be the largest urban sports fishery in the country.

With the "tangle net," one of the new gear types being tested, salmon become entangled in the small, loose weave of webbing and can be disengaged with relative ease.

A 1999 re-negotiation of the treaty between the U.S.and Canada has also changed the focus from arguing over who catches fish to working together to protect fish, and putting conservation first.

A critical component of this landmark Pacific Salmon Treaty was negotiated by Governor Locke and Canadian Fisheries and Ocean Minister David Anderson; it reduces Canadians' catch of chinook and coho whose home streams are in Washington. This treaty re-negotiation will be in effect through this decade. It followed an important 1998 Locke/Anderson agreement on conservation that had the effect of increasing by 30 percent the number of Puget Sound chinook that return to our streams to spawn. After only one season of this agreement's life, wild chinook spawning goals were achieved in the Snohomish River basin for the first time in 18 years, and the number of Skagit fall chinook tripled.

While much has been done, it is still too early to know how effective many of these fixes will be for wild fish. Fishers-Indian and non-Indian, commercial and sport-have become important advocates for putting conservation first. All tribal and non-tribal fisheries in Washington are currently operating under permits, issued in compliance with the Endangered Species Act, by the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Co-managers

Tribes and the Department of Fish and Wildlife

Washington's salmon and steelhead fisheries are managed cooperatively in a unique government-to-government relationship. One government is the state of Washington, and the other governments are Indian tribes whose rights were established in treaties signed with the federal government in the 1850s. A 1974 federal court case (decided by Judge Boldt) re-affirmed the tribes' rights to harvest salmon and steelhead and established them as co-managers of Washington fisheries. State and tribal managers cooperate in setting annual fisheries in federal and inland waters, in restoring fish habitat, and in hatchery production.

Salmon are an important part of the diet of terns, cormorants, bald eagles, gulls, and marine mammals such as sea lions.