Government May Weaken Endangered Species Act For Fish

SEATTLE — A panel of federal appellate judges is being asked to decide whether the government should count hatchery-raised salmon and steelhead when considering the fish populations for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

Lawyers for the building industry, farm and property rights groups asked Monday that the judges undo the listings of 16 West Coast salmon and steelhead populations under the act, arguing that thanks to abundant hatchery fish, the stocks are nowhere near extinction.

In its lawsuit, the Alsea Valley Alliance of Oregon challenged the listing of 16 salmon and steelhead populations as endangered in Washington, Oregon and California, claiming the government was lowballing its estimates of salmon and steelhead populations by counting only wild fish. The listing unnecessarily harms the economy by restricting development and agriculture to protect salmon habitat, the alliance argued.

U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan rejected the group's claims last year, finding that federal officials were not required to treat wild and hatchery fish identically.

Scientific studies have shown that wild and hatchery fish in a river may be genetically the same, they have behavioral differences that make wild fish more successful at surviving.

Environmentalists have argued that the point of the Endangered Species Act is to restore plant and animal populations to self-sustaining levels, without intervention from humans. But the Pacific Legal Foundation, which represents the Alsea plaintiffs, argues that the law is "intended to guard against the extinction of species, not to return ecosystems to the status and conditions they were in over 100 years ago."

In the Upper Columbia River, the National Marine Fisheries Service found that hatchery fish reduced the immediate risk that steelhead would go extinct. The agency accordingly softened the status of the steelhead from "endangered" to "threatened."

Fishermen and conservationists sued, arguing that it was irresponsible to reduce protections for wild fish based on high numbers of human-raised hatchery fish, and U.S. District Judge John C. Coughenour in Seattle agreed.

Steelhead are rainbow trout that, like salmon, spawn in rivers but go to sea, where there is much more food, and return to their natal streams to spawn. As logging, farming, dam construction and urban development destroyed their river habitat, hatcheries have been built to fill the gap.

Comments

[NWGuy]

MSNBC: "Rushing to ease endangered species rules before President Bush leaves office, U.S. Interior Department officials are trying to review 200,000 comments from the public in just 32 hours, according to an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press."

Bush, with the nation's eyes elsewhere, is pushing to gut the endangered species act as much as he can prior to leaving office. Time to scream and yell, again, on behalf of the rest of the planet.

[JuniorNorman]

Farm raised atlantic salmon are injected with mercury vaccines. Their pens are covered with parsitic worms. They are fed mercury laden menhaden. Their taste is terrible compared to real salmon.

[Exusian]

Tonight, Oct 21

On PBS Front Line

"Heat"

[ROBOT8]

FARMED FISH ARE DYED RED TO LOOK HEALTHY!!!!!!! THEY ARE RAISED ON GROWTH HORMONE AND KIBBLE AND OFFER THE NUTRITION OF GENETICALLY ENGINEERED VEGGIES. WHAT KIND OF BUSHCO CRAP IS THIS......REMEMBER REAGEN? KETCHUP AND MUSTARD AS PART OF THE VEGGIE/FRUIT FOOD GROUP!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! HOW ABOUT MUD AS A FOOD GROUP? IT HAS VITAL NUTRIENTS!

[ReasonIsMyReligion]

Have they listed Republicans yet?