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Harvest
Harvest and the ESA
Harvest management is an important part of protecting ESA-listed fish. It consists of setting harvest levels and fishing seasons for each listed stock each year to avoid taking wild fish. In addition, the action agencies support use of selective harvest gear.
Ocean harvest
In the ocean, natural spawners and hatchery fish, healthy stocks and listed stocks, intermingle. Most hatcheries mark the hatchery fish when young by cutting the adipose (underneath) fin, so that fishermen can distinguish them from the protected wild stocks. Selective harvest gear allows fisherman to separate out and safely return to the ocean any listed fish that are caught along with the nonlisted fish.
NOAA Fisheries is responsible for determining whether harvest regimes jeopardize listed stocks. It has issued biological opinions for three fisheries
- ocean fishing between the U.S. and Canada (under the Pacific Salmon Treaty) (1999),
- coastal fishing off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California (2000) and
- Columbia river fishing (a fisheries management plan for 2005-2007 under a 1968 lawsuit, U.S. v. Oregon)
Inriver harvest
Harvests in the Columbia River are managed first to allow for tribal fishing rights. Treaties with the US government give Columbia River tribes exclusive rights to fish within their reservations and rights to fish at "all usual and accustomed fishing places...in common with citizens."
After tribes, harvest allocations are apportioned between sport and commercial. These allocations depend not only on technical models and data but also on policy decisions about how the burden of conservation will be shared.
States and tribes, with the oversight of NOAA and the US Fish and Wildlife Service, share management of harvest in the Columbia Basin. A key management entity in this scheme is the US v. Oregon process.
For more information on Northwest ocean and inriver harvest management, see NOAA's webpage at http://www.nwr.noaa.gov/Salmon-Harvest-Hatcheries/Salmon-Fishery-Management/Index.cfm | | |
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