- A Salmon Conservation Strategy for the Tillamook & Clatsop State Forests
- Hatchery Reform in the NW: Issues, Opportunities & Recommendations
- Lower Columbia Steelhead Listing: How will It Affect the Urban Landscape?

A Salmon Conservation Strategy for the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests
October 2000


INTRODUCTION

Executive Summary
Ecotrust, Oregon Trout, and the Wild Salmon Center have developed a specific strategy for restoring salmon runs in the coastal Pacific Northwest region. It is based on watershed-specific evaluations that result in the creation of a system of anchor habitat areas that nourish the most productive portions of the stream. When combined with other management tools, these anchor habitat areas create a strategy that is both ecologically and economically viable for the watersheds of the Northwest. We propose that this strategy be implemented on the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests.

This report describes the details of this salmon restoration plan and discusses economic and legal issues related to it.


A PLAN FOR RESTORING SALMON ON THE TILLAMOOK AND CLATSOP STATE FORESTS USING ANCHOR HABITAT STRATEGIES

The Current Situation
Scientists estimate that salmon populations currently hover at less than 5% of their historic productivity and occupy only a fraction of their historic range and distribution in coastal watersheds. This status prompted an unprecedented state initiated coho salmon recovery effort which culminated in the Oregon Plan for Salmon and Watersheds (Oregon Plan) and an executive order issued by Governor Kitzhaber in 1999. This status also resulted in the listing of Oregon coastal coho as threatened under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1998. State and federal authorities now share responsibility for coho salmon recovery.

In the State of Oregon, the current salmon restoration strategies as proposed by the Forest Management Plan (FMP) by Oregon Department of Forestry are based on a timber management approach (known as structure-based) combined with a "riparian leave" strategy. While salmon "focus areas" are being discussed, no site specific proposals have been made.

A New Salmon Anchor Habitat Strategy
Ecotrust, Oregon Trout, and the Wild Salmon Center propose an ecologically and economically viable strategy that would restore salmon runs while allowing for predictable and stable timber harvest and forest management. This approach would 1) establish identified anchor habitat areas for salmon, 2) protect identified high-risk slopes from landslides, and 3) establish streamside protections to ensure riparian habitat protection for salmon. The approach would allow for some careful timber management within these three areas, and scheduled commercial timber harvest on the rest of the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests consistent with other management objectives and legal constraints.

Establishing Salmon Anchor Habitats
We propose an anchor habitat-based strategy for recovering watersheds and Pacific salmon which protects the most critical areas for salmon, while allowing for some timber harvest. Critical areas have been specifically identified to be established as anchor habitat for salmon. Current salmon survey information reveals that 16.6 percent of the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests contains critical salmon anchor habitat areas.

How are anchor habitat areas identified?
The first step in defining anchor habitat areas is to determine the distribution and abundance of each salmon species in the basin. Because the damaged watersheds restrict salmon to particular areas, determining where the salmon are becomes crucial. Not all portions of the basin are equally productive. The most critical reaches are those being used by salmon for spawning and rearing, as well as the areas immediately upstream.

The first pass at determining distribution and abundance was done by reviewing existing information and by a systematic snorkel count of juvenile salmon throughout most of the Tillamook and Clatsop region. Through these intensive stream surveys, areas of high salmon production were identified in each watershed.

How should anchor habitat areas be managed?
We suggest that the watershed above each of the identified areas of high salmon production be designated as an anchor habitat area. These areas are then managed to maintain their high value for salmon productivity, reestablish healthy watershed function, recover old growth characteristics, and minimize landslide risk. Anchor habitats remain protected until other parts of the watershed have recovered and are able to contribute towards salmon productivity. While higher protections exist for anchor habitat, these areas would not be permanently removed from the timber base. Some timber harvest (thinning) would be allowed within the same watershed and management to reduce negative impacts from roads and stream crossings would also be a priority.

Protecting Against Landslides
Outside of the anchor habitat areas, we suggest that steep unstable slopes, identified as being at high risk for landslides into salmon-bearing water, remain off limits to timber harvest activities. Our analysis shows that high-risk slopes account for 7 percent of Tillamook and Clatsop State Forest lands. If steep slopes are not protected, then watersheds will not properly recover. In these areas, roads and stream crossings should be upgraded to reduce stream impacts. Though landslides will occur, the goal is to reduce the occurence to a size and frequency natural to the area.

Protecting Streamside Habitat
Within 100 feet of streams, we suggest that only activities that restore aquatic and riparian function be permitted. This could include thinning and replanting consistent with the function restoration objective. Outside the 100 foot riparian area, certain forest practices would be allowed with the objective of retaining and growing large trees and establishing a diverse and healthy forest structure that includes large snags, large downed woody debris, and a multiple-layer canopy.


THE ECONOMIC CONTEXT

Achieving Sustainable & Harvestable Salmon Population Numbers
As compared to the existing management regime and NMFS's 1998 forest practices analysis, modeling indicates that our anchor habitat strategy would result in the largest coho and chinook harvest counts. If implemented today, the anchor habitat plan would allow for 3,000 coho and 8,000 chinook to be caught within 20 years, and 21,000 coho and 10,000 chinook to be caught within 120 years. Under current market conditions, an increase of 3,000 in the number of catchable fish available to anglers would be worth about $600,000

Timber Harvest, Revenue, and Job Growth
Projected timber harvest levels and job growth under the anchor habitat strategy would not be altered from existing projections. This finding is based on analysis that assumes that the aggressive swiss needle cast disease abatement program and anchor habitat strategies of the current proposed plan are both implemented. While the anchor habitat strategy will result in a reduction in access to timber, this will be offset by newly projected timber harvest increases to treat swiss needle cast disease. Annual harvest volumes will increase from 113 MMBF in 2001 to 188 MMBF in 2010. Because overall timber volume harvested from the forests would not be reduced, job growth projections in the affected counties (projected at an increase of 400 local jobs in the next ten years) would remain constant.

Recreation Revenues and Alternative Forest Products
It is possible that forest-related revenues from sources other than timber sales could increase with the adoption of an anchor habitat strategy. Increases in recreational fees, for example, might be instituted, or forest managers may collect additional revenues from the sale of forest products other than timber.

For example, a recent analysis in southern Oregon of the potential positive and negative aspects of designating a national monument concluded that, if expenditures by visitors to the monument from outside the local area increased 3-10 percent, the employment impact would be an increase in 210-700 jobs, more than offsetting the loss of 65-70 jobs in the timber industry. Similar opportunities are available to the managers of the two state forests and the residents of Clatsop and Tillamook counties.

Value-added Forest Products
Value-added wood processing essentially derives greater value in products, jobs, wages and the tax base than exporting raw materials to other counties for processing. Currently only 50% of harvested timber remains in Tillamook and Clatsop counties. Doing more with less is a successful economic development strategy that increases the level of community equity in the outcomes of forest management through business ownership, higher wage jobs, greater local flow of revenue dollars, and increased personal assets. For example, if 25% more MMBF could be captured by local processing in the counties, about 390 total local jobs would be created. At average salary rates for the sector, $23,500, this would translate into approximately $9, 650,000 annually to community economies.


THE LEGAL CONTEXT

Based upon legal and scientific research, it is our conclusion that an anchor habitat strategy offers the best opportunity for the State of Oregon to meet their salmon recovery obligations on state forest lands under state and federal law.

Traditionally, the state has retained management authority for native fish species of the state. This authority is exercised in trust by the state for the benefit of its residents. This authority is well recognized and has been upheld by the courts. State law further requires that the state prevent the serious depletion of indigenous species, such as native salmon.

Additionally, the state must comply with the federal Endangered Species Act with regard to species such as Oregon coastal coho salmon, which are listed and protected under the Act. Forest management planning documents must incorporate practices and measures that ensure conformance to the requirements of this law or be subject to potential enforcement action.

State law recognizes timber production as one of the purposes of state forest management and requires that a portion of the revenues generated from forest management activities must be distributed to local counties. However, there is no legal requirement to maximize timber production and revenue generation on every acre of state forest lands. It is fully within the Board's discretion to manage some areas, such as the salmon anchor habitats proposed in the report, primarily for fish and wildlife productivity. This authority also extends to other non-timber production uses such as recreation, municipal water supply protection, or watershed protection. These uses are consistent with the statutes authorizing the creation and rehabilitation of the state forest system.

An anchor habitat strategy for the Tillamook and Clatsop Forests will allow for scheduled timber harvest and predictable payments to counties under state law. It will assist in ensuring compliance with the federal Endangered Species Act and state laws protecting salmon. Reducing state exposure to potential liability for violation of state or federal law should be a high management priority for the state during its present planning process. Our proposal is intended to help facilitate the use of management strategies that will protect salmon and highly productive habitat, while allowing for other forest activities to commence in a timely way and continue without interruptions caused by legal violations.

CONCLUSION

An anchor habitat plan for the restoration of salmon on the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests is the most ecologically and economically sound way to manage these forests. We view anchor habitats as imperative to real recovery of salmon populations. Without them no progress will be made. They are economically viable, based on the best estimates of current and future timber harvests, revenues, and the acreages required for anchor habitats.

If all three major elements of this forest practices framework are included in a salmon restoration plan, we believe that it has a high likelihood of success. However, if anchor habitats are not protected as the core places where already declining salmon populations exist, salmon will decline further thus foreclosing on any future restoration.

Prepared by: Oregon Trout, Ecostrust, and Wild Salmon Center

For a copy of the complete report, please call (503) 222-9091 or email info@ortrout.org

Anchor Habitat Maps for the Tillamook and Clatsop State Forests

Hatchery Reform in the Northwest:
Issues, Opportunities and Recommendations

This is a summary of a comprehensive review of 950 articles which report on, or mention, problems caused by artificial fish propagation and stocking. The literature review included nearly every key North American article covering fish stocking problems which appeared in professional and popular publications since 1900. The authors' goal was to examine the underlying problems that others have revealed concerning hatchery and stocking programs, and to recommend reform. The authors are: Ray J. White, a fishery consultant from Edmonds, WA; James R. Karr, professor of Fisheries, Public Affairs, and Environmental Health at the University of Washington, Seattle; and Willa Nehlsen, a biological consultant from Portland, OR. The report was prepared for Oregon Trout and financed by the Northwest Area Foundation.

The Authors Reached these General Conclusions
• Since before the turn of the century, fishery scientists and others have reported on the harm caused by hatchery and stocking programs. These warnings have, for the most part, fallen on deaf ears. Fishery managers, politicians, and the general public have assumed that artificial propagation was a good thing without evaluating the long-term effects of these programs.
• Stocking–which is done at great expense while we damage the natural systems that provide fish for free— masks the decline of natural fish stocks, contributing to a false sense of security and complacency about habitat destruction and overfishing. While stocking fish can create temporary local abundance, it often fails and in the long run it becomes a cause for fishery decline rather than a solution.
• Hatchery fish suffer from a variety of genetic and behavioral problems that contribute to their low survival rates in the wild. But more importantly, after they are released into a natural environment, they harm wild fish populations by transmitting diseases, competing for the same resources (food and habitat), feeding on wild fish, attracting other predators, and transmitting genetic defects through interbreeding.
• Instead of trying to mitigate the decline of wild fish stocks through expanded hatchery programs and improved hatchery technology, our resources should be directed toward fixing the problems that caused the population declines in the first place.

The literature review revealed 30 common problems with hatchery fish—both physical and behavioral—which lead to poor growth, survival, and reproduction in the wild. Hatchery managers tend to focus on curing obvious physical problems, such as deformed fins and tails, unnatural coloring, obesity, poor stamina, unsuccessful breeding and disease. But hatchery fish suffer from many, more subtle problems which come from being raised in an artificial environment. These abnormal behaviors can be lethal in the wild. "The behavioral problems may be the most important and most neglected," according to the report.

Vulnerability to predators is the most critical behavior problem. Hatchery-raised fish have not learned to hide from or recognize predators, they tend to hover near the water's surface expecting to be fed (without fear of humans), and they are conspicuously hyperactive. Other behavior problems include inappropriate timing and duration of migration and spawning, and poor homing instincts.

The report also lists 11 ways in which wild stocks and their natural habitat are harmed by hatchery facilities and operations (such as stream contamination from hatchery outflow), and nine ways in which hatchery stocks harm wild fish through intermingling. All told, the literature review revealed more than 50 specific problems with North American hatchery programs documented over the past century. Some of the more egregious and obvious problems—such as low yield and low survival rates—have received repeated attention in articles since about 1920. In recent years, as more data have become available, the volume of articles critical of stocking programs has increased, as has public awareness of the situation.

The most serious problem uncovered in the literature, according to the authors, is that hatchery programs breed a sense of well-being and complacency among the public and public institutions that our fishery problems are being taken care of. Stocking has been used to allow continued overfishing and mitigate for habitat destruction. And hatchery programs deplete funding that could otherwise go for programs (such as habitat protection or restoration, and harvest control) which address the underlying problems and hold more promise for long-term success.
"Despite many studies since the 1930s that revealed shortcomings of stocking programs, and despite the many advances in ecology and genetics since then that also hold clear implications for the field, some fishery agencies and most of the public never did get the message about adverse effects, or they engaged in denial," the report states. The authors note that some hatchery operations have been abandoned based on clear evidence of failure. Unfortunately, some of these operations were restored years later when the lessons of the past were forgotten.

The authors point to recent changes in some fish management programs, such as those in British Columbia and Oregon, which emphasize improving natural production over artificial methods. In 1992, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife adopted a Wild Fish Management Policy to "prevent the serious depletion of any indigenous fish species." This is being done by 1) advocating for habitat protection and restoration, 2) opposing stocking that causes competition, predation, or disease problems for wild fish, and 3) opposing harvest strategies that would endanger the long-term viability of populations.


SPECIFIC RECOMMENDATIONS

Recognizing the numerous and well-documented problems with fish hatcheries, the authors believe that artificial propagation and stocking can be beneficial in certain situations. Based on their literature review, the authors recommend that stocking be used sparingly and only in the following circumstances:

Temporary Uses
• To recolonize native species that were driven from their native habitat by human activity, only after the habitat has been restored and the destructive activity has ceased.
• To colonize newly-formed waters, such as artificial lakes, ponds or the tailwater outflow of dams.
• To help sustain an overharvested or declining fishery economy while fishermen make the transition to other employment.

Long-Term Uses
• "Put-and-grow" stocking, to maintain a fish population in waters that have little or no reproductive habitat but substantial productive capacity—particularly artificial water bodies, such as reservoirs and reservoir tailwaters—where stocking will not harm the native biota.
•"Put-and-take" stocking, to support an intense recreational fishing in waters that cannot produce enough of a desired fish. This is often done to accommodate seasonal fishing in waters which cannot sustain a year-round fishery (for example, the water is lethally warm in the summer).

The authors point to many long-standing aesthetic, ethical and economic objections to creating an artificial fishery in this manner.


GENERAL RECOMMENDATIONS

1. Stock as few fish as possible, in as few waters as possible, for as few years as possible
2. Integrate stocking programs with ecologically-sound fishery and other aquatic resource management programs, and make stocking programs subordinate to these programs.
3. Design hatchery programs to make them less domesticated.
4. Diagnose the causes of dwindling fish populations before stocking.
5. Stock fish only of those kinds, and in those methods, that have proven effective for the local situation.
6. Stock fish only if it will not harm native fish and other organisms.
7. Keep stocked fish separate from wild populations.
8. Rigorously monitor and evaluate stocking programs, and act on the results.
9. Conduct an environmental impact statement for every proposed fish stocking program, including plans to continue existing fish stocking.

For a copy of the petition, please contact Oregon Trout at 503-222-9091x13

Lower Columbia Steelhead Listing: How will It Affect the Urban Landscape?

The decision by the National Marine Fisheries Service to list the Lower Columbia ESU for Steelhead under the ESA as threatened will unquestionably and appropriately impact urban communities.

However, Oregon Trout feels its important to stress the critical need for government officials and local decision-makers to approach the listing decision as an opportunity to press the importance of healthy watersheds and clean water. Steelhead are indicators in our aquatic ecosystems. Their demise is a harbinger of ill health for all species dependent upon clean, cold water including humans.

The most serious threat to a species is habitat destruction. On urban landscapes we have seen tremendous growth over the last decade. The way in which we manage and control growth in our communities will most likely be one of the first decisions we must confront under the listing. To recover the health of our watersheds and fisheries we must first stop the onslaught of habitat destruction. Protection measures must be established to secure what habitat remains intact within the Willamette basin. Only then will recovery efforts be affective.

Mechanisms exist that will allow local citizens and governments to take immediate control of recovery efforts. In the spirit of the Oregon Plan, urban leaders should acknowledge the role of enforcement to recovery efforts. Existing state statute will be carefully reviewed and implemented to its fullest extent. Goal 5 under the state land use law is one example where NMFS and others will focus immediate attention. Goal 5 should be re-evaluated and strengthened where deficient. Most importantly, it will be enforced rather than ignored.

Local control is still a very real possibility under the ESA. However, local government must act in concert with the Governor's Office and the Oregon delegation to establish a local working group to identify protection and recovery measures. They must then act on those measures that best protect remaining habitat and prioritize recovery in the context of watershed health. Much of the work completed by the Willamette Basin Task Force will be essential in this endeavor and will significantly reduce the need for additional studies. The congressional delegation then must work closely with the working group to provide state and federal assistance where necessary.

Furthermore, local governments basin wide will want to begin exploring the development of a Habitat Conservation Plan, or HCP. Using models developed in Arizona and California local leaders would benefit from the experience of colleagues from other states. Local governments will want to seek certainty for fiscal planning purposes, therefore many officials will find value in what an HCP has to offer.

Habitat recovery efforts will need to address the role of the flood plain to watershed health. Floodplains play an integral role in the health of the Willamette basin and its fisheries. Every effort must be taken to re-establish connectivity between river and wetland so that we can again enjoy the biotic diversity spawned by a fully functioning aquatic ecosystem. Local officials and elected representatives should take the lead in working with the Army Corps of Engineers to identify funds for floodplain restoration and capitol reconstruction.

In addition to habitat issues, urban dwellers will also be confronted with water quality and quantity issues. A growing population demands a greater supply of clean water. Regional water providers have already been grappling with growing concerns over water shortages in the near future.

Resolving this continuous issue will be even more difficult as a greater premium is placed upon existing sources of cold, clean water. The solution will not be found in turning to untapped sources. Instead we must turn our attention to recovering degraded waterways. Again, we are confronted with the mandate to protect what remains while working to recover degraded habitat.

Urban run off from parking lots, lawns, gardens and roadways is the single greatest non-point pollution problem in the state, yet few efforts are underway to correct this horrendous problem. Immediate efforts should be initiated to address this chronic source of degradation to our waterways.

In summary, Oregon Trout urges citizens and government officials alike to consider the ESA listing of steelhead and the proposal to list chinook a warning concerning the health of the Willamette basin. We urge prompt and decisive action by all localities to take action that will maintain local involvement in recovery planning and implementation. And we call upon elected officials to help identify sources of assistance and leadership during this critical juncture for the future of wild fish in Oregon.