Conservation Management

-->Protecting salmon species in the face of future climate change is complicated by the wide array of population responses observed across all scales due to shifting conditions. Management and conservation policy acts on a regional scale, necessitating a more thorough understanding of the differences that determine the broad range of salmon response to regional climate changes. Knowledge of the environmental and salmon population features that account for this diversity will equip policy makers with the tools to build effective and comprehensive conservation strategies.

Watershed map for Puget Sound freshwater habitat recovery plans [20].

Schindler et al. addresses the challenge of climate-based management and suggests that regional policy be built on a foundation of multi-habitat impacts; governance of habitat maintenance and commercial harvest strategies must be designed based on the variation in climate impacts on all habitats used by salmon during their life cycles. Previous failures of policy focused primarily on the existence of favorable conditions in a single habitat, such as the ocean where juvenile salmon spend the majority of their lives feeding and maturing, which masked the degradation of freshwater and estuarine habitat quality. Such a skewed perception of habitat performance has led to several instances of population crash, precipitated by over fishing and accelerated by freshwater habitat decline, of which Oregon coho salmon are a notable example. Schindler et al. emphasizes that the danger in poor freshwater habitat being overshadowed by high marine survival rates is exasperated by climate change and its ability to drive ocean conditions between high and low quality [23]. Due to this tendency of the oceans to oscillate between favorable and unfavorable conditions, the survival of salmon populations will also continue to shift in its reliance on primarily oceanic or freshwater conditions, making accurate knowledge and regulation of all salmonid habitat critical to the continued preservation of this valuable resource.

Map of Washington dam system, with the four lower Snake River dams in red [21].

Ice Harbor Dam, one of the four lower Snake River dams proposed for removal [22].

             Conservation efforts already in motion to increase survivability of salmon species in the Pacific Northwest include those that seek to restore salmon habitat. One of the largest projects at hand is the fight to remove the four lower Snake River dams and consequently aid the recovery of steelhead and other salmon species to the Columbia Basin. The dams are under federal control, so advocacy groups such as Save Our wild Salmon have been working to prove that the existing federal Salmon Plan, concerning the fate of the Columbia and Snake Rivers, violates the Endangered Species Act in its retention of the lower Snake River dams and consequential direct endangerment of endemic salmon species. The federal dams negatively impact salmon more than can be compensated for by habitat enhancement measures [24]. Idaho Rivers United calls the dams high-cost, low-value projects with few societal benefits, all of which can be replace by cost-competitive alternatives that will save taxpayers money in the long run; and, of course, dam removal is the best opportunity for salmon restoration in the Columbia Basin [25]. The Snake River dams have been instrumental in the demise of PNW salmon populations, with numbers at only 2-3% of the original wild runs of the Columbia and Snake Rivers [26]. The Snake River coho salmon provides a sad example of the magnitude of the dams’ impact, as the population went extinct with its last returning spawner in 1986, virtually unnoticed federally. The Nez Perce Tribe of Idaho has been active in a reintroduction program of hatchery-raised coho fry since 1995 to compensate for the loss, but the wild Snake River population of this species has forever disappeared [27]. It is evident that without removal of these dams, Columbia Basin salmon will continue to decline. Similarly, Pacific Northwest salmon stocks will suffer in the future without the application of wide-scale climate change-focused management. In both cases, action is necessary, as change, for better or for worse, is imminent.