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Chinook salmon won’t be protected
Groups sought ESA
listing for spring chinook in upper Klamath
by
JOEL ASCHBRENNER, Herald and News 4/6/12
Local agriculture
officials applauded the decision, while conservation
groups and tribal officials say more needs to be done to
protect chinook, especially the dwindling numbers that
migrate upriver in the spring.
The decision from
the NOAA Fisheries Service was published Monday in the
Federal Register.
Irrigators feared Endangered Species Act protections for chinook could have required more water from the Upper Klamath Basin be sent downriver, said Greg Adding ton, executive director of the Klamath Water Users Association. Water in the Upper Basin already is stretched thin, as certain amounts must be sent downriver and retained in Upper Klamath Lake for endangered coho salmon and sucker, respectively. Irrigators and wildlife refuges get whatever water is left over. It’s unknown how a listing for chinook would have changed water management in the Upper Basin, said Kevin Moore, spokesman for the Bureau of Reclamation’s Klamath Basin area office.
“(The decision)
makes life easier for us from a water management
standpoint because it ensures that the only species
downriver that we have to worry about are the coho,” he
said.
Conservation groups
sought protection for the spring chinook, which have
declined to less than 3,000 surviving to spawn each
year.
The decision hinged
on the difference between fall and spring run chinook.
Federal biologists found spring chinook are part of the
same genetic group as chinook returning in the fall,
which are expected to return in record numbers this
year.
Craig Tucker, a
spokesman for the Karuk Tribe, said spring chinook are
significantly different than their fall counterparts and
should be afforded specific protections. Spring chinook
have been most affected by dams in the Klamath River
because they enter the river earlier in the year and
travel farthest upriver, he said.
The decision on
chinook protections comes as an agreement to remove four
Klamath River dams waits for
Congressional
approval.
“These are the fish
that, when we take the dams out, we think will
recolonize the Upper Basin,” Tucker said of the spring
chinook.
Bob Flowers,
president of the Klamath-Lake County Farm Bureau, said
he did not think chinook should be listed in the
Endangered Species Act, especially considering the large
salmon returns projected for this year.
“We’re really
excited that they aren’t listed,” he said. “We don’t
feel they are endangered.”
The Associated Press
contributed to this report.
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