The Center for Biological Diversity and its allies have sued the National Marine Fisheries Service over what they say is a delayed Endangered Species Act protection decision for spring-run Chinook salmon in Oregon, Washington and Northern California.
The center, along with Native Fish Society and Umpqua Watersheds, petitioned the National Marine Fisheries Service in 2022 to protect Oregon Coast Chinook salmon under the Endangered Species Act.
In 2023, the Center and Pacific Rivers petitioned to add Washington coast spring-run Chinook salmon to the list.
The service was required to decide whether to protect the fish within one year after the petitions were filed. The service found that federal protections “may be warranted” for the three salmon populations in 2023, but has made no further decisions, the Center for Biological Diversity stated in a news release.
“These iconic fish are at risk of disappearing from our coastal rivers forever if the Service doesn’t act quickly,” said Jeremiah Scanlan, a legal fellow at the Center for Biological Diversity. “Spring-run Chinook salmon badly need protections, but instead the agency has taken the lazy river approach and drifted past its own deadlines.”
Chinook salmon are the largest of all Pacific salmon. Once abundant throughout the river basins of the Pacific Northwest, Chinook salmon populations have declined to a fraction of their historical size.
"Umpqua Watersheds has been tracking this population for decades and has never seen the wild spring Chinook population even close to its designated viability number for survival,” said Stanley Petrowski, a member of Umpqua Watersheds. “The science is clear. This unique ecologically significant species is going extinct."
Spring-run fish are a variant of Chinook salmon, which return to rivers earlier than the more abundant fall-run salmon. They return to coastal freshwater rivers in the spring and stay for months in deep pools until they spawn in the fall.
Early returning salmon are ecologically essential to the overall health of coastal Chinook populations, since they use colder water habitats further upstream than fall-run fish, making populations more resilient to climate change, extreme environmental conditions and human threats, the news release stated.
Spring-run Chinook salmon are also a food source for Southern Resident orcas, which are listed as endangered, having a population of only 73 individuals.
“Diminishing salmon numbers and smaller body sizes of spring Chinook means that fish-eating orcas must travel further and work harder to find sufficient food,” the Center for Biological Diversity stated in the release. “Threats to Chinook salmon include habitat destruction from logging and road construction, water diversions, interbreeding with hatchery-raised fish, overharvest in commercial fisheries and dams obstructing their return migrations.”
