[env-trinity] Redding.com- Upper Trinity, Klamath Chinook not on endangered list; feds deny request of several groups

[Tom Stokely]

Upper Trinity, Klamath Chinook not on endangered list; feds deny request of several groups
http://www.redding.com/news/2012/apr/04/trinity-klamath-chinook-not-on-endangered-list/ 

By Damon Arthur

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Federal officials have decided not to list Chinook salmon in the upper Trinity and Klamath rivers as threatened or endangered species.

The National Marine Fisheries Service issued a notice this week that Chinook do not warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act because there is little risk of them going extinct in the next 100 years.

Several groups, including the Center for Biological Diversity, sent a petition to the fisheries service last year asking it to add the Chinook salmon to the endangered species list. After a 12-month study, the agency ruled against the request.

Noah Greenwald, endangered species director for the Center for Biological Diversity, disagreed with service's decision. He said the center was most concerned about the spring run of Chinook salmon going extinct.

"The loss of that population would be serious," Greenwald said. Center officials haven't yet decided whether to challenge the service's decision, he said.

The center and other groups wanted the service to consider the Chinook spring run a distinct species from the fall run of salmon, similar to the way the two runs are treated in the Sacramento River.

But the agency said that unlike salmon in the Central Valley, the spring and fall runs "are genetically very similar," according to the notice released by the service on Monday.

Greenwald said if the spring run goes extinct, that would reduce the diversity of the salmon, putting the fall run more at risk.

In 2011 an estimated 27,194 spring run Chinook returned upstream to the Klamath River Basin, according to the state Department of Fish and Game. The basin includes the Trinity and Klamath Rivers and their tributaries.

An estimated 188,845 Chinook salmon were counted in the 2011 fall run for the entire basin, according to the DFG.

Numbers for both runs have varied greatly over the years. In 1983 there were 1,945 counted in the spring run, while 69,004 were counted in the 1988 run, according to DFG figures.

Fall run figures have ranged from 34,425 in 1991 to 245,542 in 1995, according to the DFG.

The fisheries service's decision will not affect work to restore the Trinity River, said Robin Schrock, executive director of the Trinity River Restoration Program, which has been working since 2000 to improve conditions in the river for salmon and steelhead.

"We will continue to do our job," Schrock said. The restoration program also is concerned about improving the river to help the coho salmon, as well, she said.

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