Habitat and The Endangered Species Act
The Point No Point Treaty Area is home to four
federally protected salmon/trout species Hood Canal summer chum,
Puget Sound chinook, Puget Sound steelhead and Coastal Puget Sound
bull trout. All are listed as “threatened” under the federal
Endangered Species Act
(ESA).
The Treaty Council has participated in developing comprehensive
recovery plans for
Hood Canal summer chum and
Puget Sound Chinook. Included in these plans are strategies and
actions that address harvest management, habitat protection and
restoration, and hatchery management.
Hood Canal summer chum originate entirely within streams of the
Point No Point Treaty Area. The tribal and state co-managers
(including the Treaty Council) developed a Hood Canal Summer Chum
Conservation Initiative that addressed harvest, hatchery and habitat
management of the summer chum and released it in April 2000.
Subsequently, a Hood Canal summer chum recovery plan was developed
by the Hood Canal
Coordinating Council, based in part on the Initiative, but also
with additional input from the co-managers and from local land
management jurisdictions and other interested parties. This recovery
plan was approved in 2007 by the
National Marine
Fisheries Service (NMFS) as required under the
ESA.
A larger effort involving all of Puget Sound was undertaken to
develop the Puget Sound chinook recovery plan. The Treaty Council
and its tribes participated in this planning process as well,
specifically addressing the chinook populations within the Point No
Point Treaty area. This recovery plan was approved by the NMFS in
2007.
A complete recovery plan for Puget Sound steelhead is in process. A
harvest management plan has been drafted by the Puget Sound tribal
and state co-managers and is under review with the NMFS.
The Treaty Council and its member tribes have helped manage the
recovery of ESA-listed fish species, not only by participating in
salmon recovery planning but by taking other actions as we;
*Eliminating fisheries directed at summer chum and chinook,
and adjusting fisheries directed at other salmon stocks whose run
timing overlaps summer chum and chinook stocks, to avoid incidental
harvests;
*Participating in hatchery supplementation program planning
to help recover or
restore the federally listed populations;
*Revising existing programs for non-listed species to reduce
potential impacts on listed fish;
*Participating in land use management processes to protect
habitat, such as critical area ordinance and shoreline master
program updates;
*Working with all interested groups – from federal entities
to local grassroots efforts to develop salmon habitat restoration
projects for listed and non-listed species. These efforts run from
small culvert replacement projects that open up high-quality
spawning habitat for returning salmon, to mapping projects that
specify where marine habitat has been lost and how best to recover
it.
Additional Links:
Puget Sound Partnership
WDFW Species Recovery and Management