THE SCIENCE AND POLITICS OF SALMON DECLINE AND RECOVERY


A Presentation to Southern Oregon University


Ashland, Oregon


April 29, 1999





By Bill M. Bakke


_____________________________________________________________________________





	I would like to begin by describing how salmon are organized then speak about how we are 


organized to  see if salmon and people are compatible.  


	To begin let me read a passage from J.E. Thorpe, a salmon biologist from Scotland, 


describing Atlantic salmon:





	ãNatural selection ensures the success of a species by favoring reproduction among 


animals which are adapted harmoniously with their environment, and by eliminating those not 


so well adapted.  Every river system is different.  It imposes physical and biological constraints 


on the animals developing within it, which differ in subtle ways from those imposed in other 


rivers.  Hence, the pressures of natural selection differ between rivers, and it is therefore not 


surprising to find that the genetic composition of the salmon population in one river differs 


from that in the next.  This close match between genotype and environment is preserved 


efficiently through high homing precision, so that these stocks remain discrete.  So the stock of 


salmon of a particular river is likely to possess a genetically determined range of patterns of 


development, tailored by natural selection, which ensures success in that specific river.  If 


salmon are to be stocked into a system to increase the numbers of an existing population, then 


ideally they should be of that recipient population.  If they differ, subsequent interbreeding 


could modify the genetic spectrum of that recipient population....  Such changes could impair 


the ability of the population to respond to environmental change.ä


	


	To expand on what Thorpe said in 1988, we can look at what Altukhov found in a Siberian 


Lake.  The lake had a sockeye salmon run, but he found this one run was composed of 30 


subpopulations each using a different part of the lake and its tributaries for breeding.


	On the Grande Ronde River in Northeast Oregon, the National Marine Fisheries Service 


identified five distinct subpopulations of spring chinook and recovery of this species would require 


rebuilding each subpopulation.


	In the Snake River, scientific investigation found that spring/summer chinook, listed as a 


threatened species under the federal ESA, was composed of 40 subpopulations, each genetically 


distinct and adapted to specific watersheds or portions of a single watershed.  


	We know, based on scientific literature from around the world where salmon are native, 


that they form, based on homing to the stream where they were born, locally adapted populations 


that have evolved over time to fit their home stream environment.  This adaptation to the 


environmental conditions of the home stream gives them an advantage of high survival. So a species 


such as chinook, and steelhead are composed of a distinct races such as summer chinook and 


steelhead and spring chinook and winter steelhead.  But they are also much more complicated as 


each population can form a subpopulation structure in the rivers where they home to reproduce.  


Likewise, their ocean distribution and behavior is genetically guided, so that salmon from the Rogue 


River have a distinct ocean distribution form those in the Trask River, and events such as El Nino 


and upwelling affect these populations differently because of their ocean distribution.


	The salmon we know today have been evolving on this coast for about 50 million years.  


These are ancient families with ancestors that knew the mastodon and the saber toothed tiger.  By 


comparison some of our ancestors have been tracked back in the fossil record to 4.2 million years.


	The salmon of the western North American continent, are still relatively wild and exhibit 


local adaptation, but a 122 years of contact with European Americans has had a striking effect on 


abundance and distribution of these once bountiful fish.  Long gone are the days when we got 


around by stage coach, but it has been an equally long time since the salmon were so plentiful in the 


Applegate River that they tipped over a stage coach fording the river.


	


	Now that we have some sense about how salmon are organized, lets look at ourselves.  


According to Carmel Finley, once a reporter for The Oregonian and now a graduate student at 


Oregon State University and writing her salmon book, we are not organized to protect salmon at all.





	ãFish management agencies are structured to harvest fish not conserve them, 


therefore, they are not prepared through their institutional structure to be responsive to 


conservation needs and to recover depleted populations.ä





	Jim Lichatowich, a member of the state Independent Multidisciplanary Science Team 


providing scientific review of state agency actions under the Oregon Plan for Salmon and 


Watersheds, said the following in a letter to Governor Kitshaber in 1997.





	ãBefore the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife can assume a leadership position 


in the restoration of salmon it must be reorganized to break the domination of harvest and 


hatchery advocates over the policy and direction of salmon management...overharvest and poor 


hatchery practices destroyed most of the productivity and resiliency of coastal ecosystems.  In 


the sea of uncertainty that surrounds salmon restoration the one certainty that should be 


obvious is that the status quo failed.  The policies and programs that contributed to the current 


crisis cannot be expected to resolve it.ä





	Based on these comments, one can assume that the state fish and wildlife department is not 


well organized to save wild, native salmon.  But are other state agencies doing any better? Has the 


Oregon Water Resources Department considered salmon flow and temperature requirements when 


issuing water rights?  Has the Oregon Department of Forestry provided enough protection for 


salmon habitat being logged?  Does the Department of Environmental Quality enforce its 


temperature standard on trout and salmon streams?  


	Governor Kitzhaber is trying to get the state agencies organized around salmon protection, 


but he is finding that difficult to do.  He may be the Governor, but he has limited ability to cause 


state agencies to follow his lead.  


	State and federal agencies are organized to serve the interests of specific interest groups and 


those interest groups look upon the environment as a collection of commodities that can be 


developed for profit.  Likewise, the agencies view nature as a source of wealth that can be exploited 


by the public while serving the public good.  But make no mistake about it nature is on the chopping 


block.  There is no equal standing for conservation of nature within agencies, except for one, the 


federal Endangered Species Act.


	The only region-wide native salmon conservation program in place is that of the ESA.  


Oregon may have the wild fish management policy, adopted in 1978, but it applies only to Oregon.  


If salmon are to be protected and recovered from their slide into extinction, it will require states and 


local governments to organize for conservation of salmon and their watersheds, and it will require a 


regional structure that includes all jurisdictions from California, Idaho, Canada to Alaska.  There has 


never been a more compelling case for regional conservation action than the salmon, and the region 


has never had to organize itself to conserve such a wide ranging animal with one of the most 


extensive migrations on earth. 





	


	My comments will now be focused on the fish management authorities in the region and 


specifically the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. This agency has the unique and specific 


responsibility under state law to protect indigenous species from serious depletion. However, it must 


be kept in mind that the ODFW has no authority over native fish habitat.  This quirk of state 


government is revealing.  You might ask how can an agency be responsible for a species and not 


have authority over its habitat?  The reason, of course, is that natural resource agencies are 


structured to serve and regulate commodity interests.


	There are two concepts of salmon management that fuel an active debate today.  The first 


one I will call Production Management, and it began in 1878 when Oregon built its first salmon 


hatchery.  The purpose of this hatchery was to increase the supply of chinook salmon in the 


Columbia River which were in decline from overharvest.  It was also used to avoid conservation 


regulation of the commercial fishery which was politically stronger then the state at the time.  


	The other concept I will call Ecologically Based Management, developed by Dr. Willis Rich 


in 1938, an Oregon research  biologist. Based on his salmon tagging studies he concluded that 


salmon do not return to spawn randomly in rivers, rather they homed to the river where they were 


born.  His theory of salmon management became known as the Home Stream Theory.  Rich 


maintained that in order to properly manage for the long-term persistence of salmon one had to 


protect both the population and the habitats that sustained them.


	Unfortunately, the era of dam construction had begun.  Bonneville and Rock Island dams 


had been build on the Columbia and more were planned including numerous dams on the 


Willamette.  Fish hatcheries were already the preferred way to improve salmon runs, so it was a 


short step to mitigation for dam construction.  This was a relief to the water development interests, 


because they did not have to provide salmon passage at dams.  A fish hatchery was acceptable as 


replacement for natural production. 


	The cost of fish propagation runs from 40 to 50 percent of annual budgets.  In contrast, 


expenditures for maintaining the biological diversity of salmon populations ranges from 2 to 5 


percent.


	The state of Oregon claims that 70 to 80 percent of the salmonids caught in Oregon waters 


are of hatchery origin.  If you are seeking to justify your hatchery program this is a good number.  


But is it working?  If one considers the listing of over 20 populations and many more 


subpopulations, closed or restricted fisheries, and a growing number of extinctions, the status quo 


has not worked. Production management is a failure.  Coho salmon, for example are only 2 percent 


of their historic abundance and continue to decline.  


	The ecological management alternative offered by Dr. Rich  is now being applied as the 


federal Endangered Species Act, where locally adapted wild, native salmonid populations and their 


habitat requirements are the purpose of management rather than harvest or production. This change 


has created conflict between the agency advocates for hatcheries and harvest and those working for 


the recovery of species.


	Thorpe said a healthy salmon population is defined by a close match between genotype and 


the environment.  The 122 year history of salmon management in Oregon has broken this ecological 


relationship through a reliance and advocacy for technological fixes to ecological problems.


	We now know that salmon form locally adapted populations and they develop a high 


degree of survival fitness to home habitats that are constantly changing.  The natural habitats of 


salmon are dynamic and select for survival in each generation and through events that span decades 


and even centuries like climate change and shifts in ocean productivity.  Genetic and life history 


diversity are the basis for coping with a fluctuating environment.


	Hatcheries select for survival traits that favor survival in a hatchery environment but select 


against traits that work in nature.  Research has shown that hatchery bred salmonids have a lower 


survival rate ranging from two to twelve times lower than for wild salmon.  And these changes in 


survival fitness can take place in the first generation of hatchery rearing.  The hatchery selects for a 


hatchery-type fish.


	The production management policies of agencies rely on numerical goals such as the 


number of fish stocked and the catch per unit of effort.  What has been missing are biological goals 


that measure life history diversity, and genetic variation within and among locally adapted 


populations.  Until hatchery technology embraces biological goals for hatcheries, they will continue 


to contribute to the decline of wild, native salmonids.


	An emphasis on production management has failed to maintain the productivity of salmon 


and the ecological conditions that sustain them.  In a recent review of hatcheries the Independent 


Scientific Review Board said that ãartificial production has been implemented on a scale that will 


continue to commit a large percentage of the regionâs restoration resources, a large percentage of 


the available watersheds, and a large percentage of the remaining stocks to a single, unproven 


technology.  There may be merit to reconsidering these priorities.ä  They also say, ãThe historical 


record does not reassure us that hatchery programs can respond to changing realities and changing 


scientific knowledgeä (ISAB 1999).  


	Fish managers are telling us that we can rely on domestic strains of salmon for future 


production.  At the same time they have failed to protect the productivity of watersheds and native 


populations.  Watersheds are the storehouses of salmonid biological diversity where native 


populations respond to natural selection and continue to evolve.  These watersheds and native 


salmon populations represent the wild seed sources aquaculture needs to respond to disease and loss 


of genetic diversity in its attempt to maintain the production of domestic strains of salmon.


	 There is a parallel to be found in United States agribusiness.  Agribusiness  has realized the 


value of the wild gene pool for domestic crops such as corn, wheat and rice.  In order to infuse 


resistance to pests and disease into high yield monocultures, the United States spends millions 


searching for wild gene resources.   We are all faced with the problem of meeting future human 


food supply, yet the production based agribusiness, by exporting its technology is eliminating both 


the wild seed sources and the indigenous farming methods that cultivate native plants, and the 


genetic resources agribusiness needs to maintain production.  


	But at least agribusiness recognizes the value of wild genetic resources. On the other hand 


fisheries managers have not.  In agriculture one can collect seeds from wild forms and plant them 


out to maintain a supply, but salmon are more difficult.  The only way to maintain a wild seed 


source is to protect watersheds and wild populations.


	There is a decision to be made.  Are we to continue reliance on the industrial production 


model for salmon or will we acknowledge 50 million years of evolutionary history and allow it to 


inform our industrial approach to salmon management.  The choice should be an obvious one.  We 


cannot hope to maintain any salmon runs in the Northwest without wild salmon.  


	This is a choice that is informed by science, but it is, in the end a social choice about the 


shape of our future.  Our cultural view of nature and the institutions we have invented to manage 


nature must change, but only the public has the ability to lead this change.








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