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TULALIP FISH MANAGERS STRESS PROTECTION FOR WILD CHINOOK

 PORTLAND, Ore. (4/7/98) -- With state and tribal fisheries managers mapping out 1998 salmon fishing season this week in Portland, the Tulalip Tribes are happy to see what appears to be more commitment to protecting wild chinook salmon stocks.

 Managers from the Tulalip Tribes are meeting with other tribal managers and the states of Washington and Oregon to finalize salmon fishing plans for the 1998 season. Last week the tribal and state managers tentatively agreed to management objectives for wild chinook salmon stocks which will control overall harvest levels on each wild stock to unprecedented low rates.

 The Tulalip Tribes, who have emphasized protection for wild chinook stocks since 1985, plan to target their terminal-area fishery on their hatchery-produced chinook in Tulalip Bay. The overall harvest rate will assure that incidental fishery impacts are not impeding rebuilding of wild chinook stocks, said Terry Williams, Executive Director of Natural Resources for the Tulalip Tribes.

 "I am pleased that the state managers appear to have agreed to our proposal to use scientifically-based harvest rate management to control overall incidental harvest throughout the range of these fish," Williams said. "I am also very pleased that we are planning a set of fisheries that will keep harvest significantly below these already conservative levels."

 There will likely be no fisheries directed at the harvest of wild chinook salmon from the Snohomish/Snoqualmie/Skykomish river basin (as well as other Puget Sound river systems). The incidental harvest of wild chinook in all fisheries will be carefully monitored and controlled, Williams said.

 Tulalip ceased directed fishing on wild chinook salmon beginning in 1985 as part of the pass-through obligations of the Pacific Salmon Treaty. Since then, tribal members' chinook opportunity has been limited to harvest directed at hatchery fish returning to the Tulalip Hatchery in a small on-reservation area at Tulalip Bay. The small area and limited time period of this fishery focus the harvest on Tulalip hatchery chinook.

To further reduce the chance that wild fish will be incidentally harvested, the tribes use a "pulse fishery" management strategy whereby the fishery is opened three days per week, allowing four days per week for hatchery fish to accumulate in the area while any wild fish that might be passing through to escape the fishery. This "pulse fishery" management plan has been in effect in the Tulalip Bay fishery since the 1990 season.

 Tulalip is conducting a research project to evaluate the effectiveness of pulse fishery management and to assure that the hatchery program does not adversely impact wild stocks. All chinook salmon released from the Tulalip hatchery are marked and can be identified in fishery samples as well as in samples taken on wild spawning grounds.

 Tribal and state managers are currently beginning to work on comprehensive rebuilding plans for wild chinook salmon stocks in the Stillaguamish and Snohomish watersheds. These plans will include maximum guidelines for the incidental harvest or mortality of wild chinook salmon.

Kit Rawson, Tulalip harvest management biologist, explained that this year's harvest rate guidelines will consider all incidental wild stock impacts, including estimates of chinook killed in non-retention sport fisheries as well as wild fish harvested incidental to the Tulalip Bay hatchery-directed fishery.

 "These guidelines assure that harvest will not be an impediment to chinook rebuilding,"

Rawson said, "but harvest restrictions alone will never rebuild these chinook salmon runs. The fish must have productive habitat in the rivers to return to if these runs are to increase."

 Over the past three years, the decline in wild chinook spawning escapement to the Snohomish basin has been reversed. Although this short-term trend does not necessarily signal rebuilding, it is an encouraging sign that the chinook protection measures in place over the past several years have succeeded in passing more fish through to the spawning grounds. "With even more protection in place beginning in 1998, we expect continued good pass-through of wild fish," said Rawson.

 The Tulalip usual and accustomed fishing area extends from the Canadian border to the northern end of Vashon Island. For more than a decade the tribe has given up directed fishing on chinook in all of this area, except for the small Tulalip Bay area where the fishery can target on hatchery fish produced at the tribal hatchery. This situation may persist for many years until sufficient habitat is restored to provide productive wild stocks, said Rawson.

 Williams said the Tulalip Tribes' long-term objective is to be able to have meaningful treaty-rights fisheries throughout their usual and accustomed fishing area, but they will not open any fishery that violates resources conservation guidelines.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT: Terry Williams, Executive Director, Tulalip Natural Resources, (360) 651-4480; Kit Rawson, Tulalip Harvest Management Biologist, (360) 651-4478; Logan Harris, North Sound Information Officer, Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, (360) 424-8226.

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