Proposal would cut salmon catch, close harmful hatcheries
To save Northwest salmon, the Bush administration wants to focus on reducing the number of threatened and endangered fish being caught by U.S. and Canadian fishermen and closing hatcheries that are harming wild spawners.
James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, announced the new policy Wednesday at a meeting in Portland of salmon scientists, many of whom have concluded that only remnant runs of wild Pacific salmon will survive unless people make major changes in the way they live.
The announcement triggered markedly different responses from conservation groups.
The message that fishing needs to be reduced and hatcheries scrutinized, "that's something Washington Trout has been saying for a long, long time," said Ramon Vanden Brulle, a spokesman for the non-profit group.
Washington Trout and three other conservation groups filed a notice of intent on Wednesday to sue the federal government for failing to set catch limits for Puget Sound salmon at levels allowing for recovery.
An organization representing commercial fisherman bristled at Connaughton's remarks.
"It's a diversionary tactic," said Glen Spain, Northwest regional director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations. "The administration has done everything it can ... to avoid dealing with the big issue in the Columbia (Basin), and that is the dams."
Jack Williams, the chief scientist for Trout Unlimited and former fisheries chief for the Bureau of Land Management, said Connaughton's proposals were "clearly inadequate."
Connaughton said extensive work has been done restoring freshwater habitat and making hydroelectric dams less lethal, and it is time to shift the focus.
"We cannot improperly hatch and we cannot carelessly catch our way back to salmon recovery," Connaughton told the scientists.
Continue reading this story from the Seattle P-I:
Bush proposal would cut salmon catch, close harmful hatcheries
