coho no longer "threatened"!?!

[fishesfrom tupperware]

hello yall,

I read this in the Oregonian this morning and I thought it was somewhat disturbing.
I'm another one of those **** imports from the south [New Orleans via L.A.]. I got the licence (including the "you have'nt been here 6 months" penalty), read the encyclopia from the DFW and actually kinda like it (its taken 6 months though).
Yall seem to have an extremly well protected fishery and more than anything this ruling looks like an excuse to build condo's on all the rivers and put sewer pipes on the creeks. Or am I missing the point completly? Is this something that is trying to hide under the smoke of our national tragedy?

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/xml/s tory.ssf/html_standard.xsl?/base/news/100046852532619110.xml

PS thanks for letting me in and you can close the borders now.

[ 09-14-2001: Message edited by: fishesfromtubberware ]

[TheRogue]

To begin with, I don't agree with the ruling AT ALL, Butttttt...........

Looks to me like this is a ruling that has been a long time coming, right or wrong. Until there is absolute concrete evidence, not just biological opinions, the court is probably justified in making the ruling. Common sense in NOT something that has to be considered when you're talking about laws.

Will this mean stream destruction, mass wild fish killings, etc? Heck no, there's too many state laws in place for that. This will probably just cause more rulings to come down from the ODFW. The big problem will be enforcement and prosecution, without the federal weight behind any of the rules.

I believe that many streams are still under the umbrella of the steelhead listing...and it should hold water, since most of the hatchery brats are Alsea-strain fish, and are identifiable as such.

Wow, very big news, we'll see where it goes!!

kyle

[garyk]

This is vintage Michael Hogan (the judge who made the ruling).

He has a long history of making rulings that oppose or undermine conservation efforts.

As someone else posted -- this was a political decision.

[Fishaholic]

"Hatchery-born salmon are rarely counted when the fisheries service decides whether to list stocks under the Endangered Species Act. Fisheries service officials say they are most concerned about wild salmon, and worry that hatchery salmon threaten wild stocks by contaminating their gene pool or taking food and habitat."
This is exactly the point the, NMFS did not count any hatchery fish which allowed the commercial fisherman to do their thing. kill everything in the nets, Chinook, Silvers, Steelhead & Sturgeon. if you account for all the fish, as native, then its hard to open the season to netting. this is a great ruling.

[willierower]

This ruling will have minimal impacts on wild coho. All it really does is takes away an over used tool for filing lawsuits.
As far as I know there is no scientific eveidence that any hatchery bred fish have "polluted" the genetics of wild fish........

[rob allen]

willie rower what this will do is keep the hatchery workers from keeping the hatchery coho from spawning with thewild fish which is absolutely known to cause all kinds of problems! http://www.teleport.com/~salmo/library.htm

check out all of the info listed there.. especially the sections are from the Chilicotte and derhart afidavits

[garyk]

WILLIEROWER says - "This ruling will have minimal impacts on wild coho. All it really does is takes away an over used tool for filing lawsuits."

garyk replies -- Over-used tool?! There wouldn't even by an "Oregon Salmon Recovery Plan" if wild coho hadn't been listed. It took that listing to get people serious about protecting coho.

[Silent Lucidity]

They sure aren't endangered while I'm on the river...they're never safer, actually. [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[SSPey]

I'm not at all happy with the ruling, but the judge ruled that populations were defined on a genetic basis through ESA, and unfortunately that not a radical judgement. What is flawed is that despite their genetic similarity, it is the processes of hatchery rearing that imbues these clone fish with poor survival skills. They pick up bad behaviors in the hatchery, or fail to pick up good ones, and this influences their survival and reproduction - and messes up wild stocks. The ESA needs to perhaps be revised to incorporate important behavioral aspects of species survival. THe law was written a while ago, and we've learned a lot since then.

that friggin' Alsea alliance - are there fishing guides that are part of that alliance, or particular people whose businesses I can be sure to avoid?

I don't have all the facts on this but can this be good for wild fish? I think not! Do we really want native runs replaced with hatchery fish? I would be interested in what *** clerk thinks or O My Kiss. Gentlemen?
Stew

[fishbait]

1. IS this Judge an idiot

OR

2. Was he bought

OR

3. Who has the incriminating pictures


We all need to write to this poor uneducated Judge, offer to take him fishing and experience the difference between and Native and a hatchery silver with rod an reel. Then let him try to say they are all the same. The man obviously is educated and intellegent, how can he be so cranial rectal inverted..........

[finclipped]

WoW!!! When did our courts become experts in fish biology? Must be one of those levels of enlightenment you reach after a number of years of defending the guilty, dictating whats just & fair, and deciding who is Right or wrong. [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

It seems appropriate to me listen to those who are most knowledgeable about fish biology.

[TheRogue]

The courts aren't experts in fish biology...or anything else for that matter. They just have to decided what is lawful, and what isn't. That's one of the toughest parts about living in a society like ours. Lets face it, how did OJ walk?? Common sense told 99% of us he was guilty, but he went anyway. The judge had the power to overturn the verdict, but he didn't.

Let's fund the studies to prove without a doubt the genetics of these fish, and get things changed. Until then, there's not much we can do...other than police your fellow fishermen, don't allow them to target Coho on their spawning beds, mishandle a fish before it's released, etc. Show up for land use hearings, write letters, make phone calls, anytime something affects a river or stream that maybe wouldn't have happened before this ruling. Things we should all be doing, anyway.

kyle

[finclipped]

Why is the burden of "proof" such that biologist need to prove there is a difference between hatchery and native?

The position of the biologist in general is that through natural selection and passing on those traits that are most effetive at reproducing and propagating a species, native fish are different. So shouldn't the burden of proof be on proving there isn't a difference between hatchery and native?

It all comes down to how the judge decided to interpret it.

[rob allen]

Hmm In this case the judge had to make a biological decision, something he was unable to do so he made a political decision.

He ignored a huge and growing body of evidence about the interactions of hatchery and wild fish provided to him by hundreds of biologists. Instead he took one statement by a NMFS person in charge or hatcheries and inland fisheries who said " there is no difference between hatchery and wild fish" and " it's unlikely that there are and true wild fish left" Both statements are false and have nothing to back them up.. This judge didn't base his decision on the best evidence he based it on his preconcieved ideas. he did not act as a judge he acted as a dictator.

[willierower]

fishbait,
Do a little research on Micheal Hogan. You will see is from a small town on the south coast, The same town I was born and raised in. He hunts and fishes just like most of us on this BB.
Im sure he knows what he is doing.This is one judge we sportsman want on our side.

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Bigstew

Regardless of whether this federal judge takes it upon himself to try to apply simple logic to a life cycle that is infinitely complicated, the Endangered Species Act will not allow hatchery salmon to be considered an adequate replacement of wild. The ESA protects populations in the “native” environment and hatcheries will never be considered native or natural. It would be like trying to save the American Bald Eagle by capturing adequate broodstock and raising them in a zoo until released to mate. The ESA protects species in their natural environment. Allowing Salmon to be removed from the ecosystem to be raised in a hatchery and to return to the hatchery impacts on the other organisms that depend on salmon for their survival as well. We have caused a collapse of nearly all river and estuarine ecosystems to the point that the rivers produce nearly no fish. Increasing hatchery production will merely exacerbate low river production. Hatcheries have historically displayed the ability to replace wild salmon rather than produce extra salmon. As most people who have been salmon fishing this year may realize, ocean conditions seem to be the determining factor in the number of returning fish, not hatchery production. We cannot force nature to produce more returning adults by tossing in larger and larger numbers of hatchery smolts.
There is perhaps one aspect that should be considered with this ruling. If now there is no legal distinction between hatchery and wild fish, on rivers that currently have runs that are listed as threatened or endangered, a different judge may decide that no harvest can take place because ALL are considered endangered, no selective sports harvest as well as no ocean commercial harvest. If you cannot target the non-listed component of the run and all fish are listed as endangered some “green” judge may halt all harvest until all the ESU components of a river basin are above threatened levels. On the Columbia, that is a lot of individual runs that would need to be healthy. If I was a “treaty” fisherman in this instance I would target one particular run of fish on a ESA listed tributary of the Columbia and net them heavily to prevent recovery of this one river, thus preventing all others from harvesting, permanently. Sneaky, but it could be done.

[Hoosier Daddy]

To quote my favorite South Park character...."I...am....so....pisssed off right...now...... [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/mad.gif[/img]

[Steelheadman]

Has anybody read the complete opinion yet? I would like to see what it says.

[Steve]

I've kept my big mouth shut for several weeks, But now you are going to get my take on the situation,,, 1.3 million coho up the Columbia, obviously not all are going to be caught, gillnet, hook and line, dam mortality, the rest are going to spawn when the time is right, ah gee! polluted gene pool.! The hatcheries used native fish for their stocking programs,,,ah gee polluted gene pool! Alsea Steelhead in other streams, ah gee polluted gene pool. In a perfect world there would be no angling, hunting, crabbing because of the need for ecological balance...but this is an imperfect world racked by 200 years of abuse....if you want perfect fish go to Alaska or Russia, as for me hatchery fish are fine, fight well, eat well, the Judge was right on, The Biologist had their heads up their
A$$ when they came up with 97 subspecies of Coho for 97 steams on the coast, Once again I submit that every fish in the state of Oregon is a (recent) new comer, 15,000 years since the last ice age and the Missoula Floods...when was the last time you saw a fish swimming up a glacier..??? Someone earlier said it best..Quit ******* and start Fishin..

[Fishaholic]

Right on Steve, here is a link to the decision: http://www.lseinc.com/docs/caseno99.pdf


[img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[CATCH AND EAT]

[img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] The Dude. Again [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/rolleyes.gif[/img]

[TheRogue]

Well, I'm not a lawyer. However, in my line of work, I get/have to read a LOT of legal opinions and decisions, from local judges, all the way up to the US Supreme Court. It's a well written decision. Not a lot of in-depth detail, just citing all the precedence. The explanation of why he made his ruling is straight and to the point, and very defendable. He didn't even attempt to make any precendent-setting judgements, because this one is going on up the ladder!!

It's too bad the system works this way, something like this should've started higher up the chain....now everyone gets to spend more money on lawyers to challenge and defend.

kyle

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

The following is a copy of a letter from Oregon’s Governor John A. Kitzhaber to Donald Evans of the U.S. Department of Commerce regarding his opposition to the ruling on Oregon Coastal Coho by Federal District Court Justice Michael R. Hogan. This retyped copy is provided by Bill Bakke, Native Fish Society.

September 19, 2001

The Honorable Donald L. Evans
Department of Commerce
14th St. &Constitution Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20230

Dear Secretary Evans:

I am concerned about the recent ruling in the Alsea Valley Alliance case in the United States District Court for the District of Oregon regarding the Oregon Coastal Coho listing which occurred in 1998. This decision, in combination with application of the Endangered Species Act (ESA) to fish species around the nation, raises questions and creates confusion about the treatment of hatchery produced fish within the context of the ESA.

I want to urge you to consider two courses of action with regard to the court ruling. First, I urge you to appeal the decision to allow for a broader review of the issues raised in the case. Second, I want to recommend that before or concurrent with its reconsideration of whether Oregon Coastal Coho warrant listing under the ESA, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) conduct a rule making process making it clear that because fish are not essential to recovery they are not part of distinct population segments under the ESA.

I am concerned about the potential social, economic and ecological consequences of this decision. If NMFS reconsiders its listing decision and lists Oregon Coastal Coho, including the hatchery component of the ESU, this could have devastating effects on fisheries and result in increased regulations for landowners on the Oregon Coast.

I am very concerned that in the absence of these actions by NMFS there will be a call for increasing hatchery fish production to avoid ESA listings, masking the underlying problems causing the degradation of watershed health. I am also concerned about the implications this ruling has for maintaining and recovering wild runs of salmon, steelhead and trout. Much research has been done that indicates adverse impacts on wild salmonids from hatchery introductions in the same streams and rivers.

One purpose of the ESA as stated in Section 2(b) is “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.” ESA listings represent a significant warning to all of us that we are stretching watersheds beyond their capacity to support a healthy distribution and abundance of species and beyond the capacity to sustain healthy communities, a healthy economy and a healthy environment. Simply relying on artificial production to support the populations of a species is contrary to the intent of Sections 2(b) and to the spirit of the ESA itself.

Sincerely

(Signed)

John A Kitzhaber, M.D.

Bill M. Bakke
Native Fish Society
P.O. Box 19570
Portland, OR 97280
503.977.0287

[thedude]

You are correct.
This is so the people can build and devolop on waterways. Just becuse we have one good salmon season people think everything is fine now. Yes they say becuse of hatchery fish we have an ample supply now and they shouldn't be the endangered species list. I disagre.
You are correct I am sure our puppet president will now use our war time to smoke screen allot of things. His Oil company bosses will direct in many ways now. If you haven't been to the Alaska artic wilderness you better get up there quick. It will be ruined withen 2 years by oil compnay trash and drilling.

I hope people who care about our fishery and wilderness don't lose sight of this due the war on terrorists.