ODFW's Plan to Keep Killing Wild Steelhead on the South Coast Goes in Front of Oregon's Commission
Photo courtesy of Nick Chambers
At their October 15 meeting, the Oregon Fish and Wildlife Commission will hear a presentation from Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) staff on their updated Rogue - South Coast Multi-Species Conservation and Management Plan (RSP).
(Meeting agenda and materials are available here.)
A draft of the plan was presented to the public for feedback this summer. In that earlier version, three potential “Alternatives” for regulations managing wild steelhead harvest were presented for input. The public spoke loud and clear for wild fish conservation - Nearly 90 percent of the comments submitted called for catch-and-release of all wild steelhead in Southern Oregon rivers. But despite the outpouring of support for wild steelhead protections, the “updated” version of the RSP being presented to the Commission will still allow for wild fish to be killed.
One has to wonder why ODFW even bothered to ask for the public’s opinion if they are willing to ignore such an overwhelming consensus?
Anglers still have important opportunities to have their voices heard on the RSP. They can attend the October 15 Commission meeting online to offer public testimony and they can send an email to the Commission at: ODFW.Commission@odfw.oregon.gov
Please note: Registration to provide public comment at the Commission meeting must be done by 8:00am on Wednesday, October 13. (Link to register for testimony here.)
The fact is, the RSP is an inadequate plan to recover wild steelhead and should be sent back to the drawing board by Oregon’s Fish and Wildlife Commission. It proposes to continue harvesting wild steelhead even though ODFW doesn’t know how many adult fish are returning each year, if those populations are truly stable, or even how many are being killed or impacted by anglers. Harvesting wild steelhead requires a very, very high bar to ensure it is sustainable and not contributing to population declines and excessive losses of diversity. This plan fails to meet that reasonable standard.
The right decision now is to pause harvesting wild steelhead to give new monitoring efforts time to establish accurate fish counts and population trends. Hatchery fish are available for harvest. There is no reason to keep killing wild steelhead when we don’t even know how many return each each year.
Image courtesy of Nick Chambers.
The Rogue - South Coast Multi-Species Conservation and Management Plan (RSP) is a massive document and it can be a lot for anglers to track the details and conflicts surrounding its potential implementation. Fortunately for all of us, our colleague Nick Chambers has been working hard to break down the RSP’s fundamental shortcomings and communicate the key details to the public. Anglers and conservationists owe him for all of his work to speak up on behalf of Oregon’s South Coast wild steelhead. Rather than paraphrase his findings, we thought it would be best to point directly to the resource(s) he has assembled.
A great place to start is his five-part series of “Science Friday” blog posts for Wild Steelheaders United. The post “Wild Steelhead Harvest: Biological or Social Issue?” provides an important perspective and has links to the other posts in the series.
Chambers has also been posting actively on his Instagram account (@pnw_riverrat) during the weeks leading up to the October 15th Oregon Commission meeting. Even if you aren’t on Instagram, or you missed them the first time, it is worth reading his short posts on the data gaps in the RSP, the limitations of measuring steelhead populations through juvenile surveys, the debate about the current health of the Rogue River’s wild steelhead runs, the importance of including catch-and-release when considering harvest impacts, and some great historical information about the Rogue River’s steelhead.
Take a few minutes and dig into the information Chambers has assembled and then either speak up at the Oct 15 Commission meeting (register here) or be sure to send the Commission an email (ODFW.Commission@odfw.oregon.gov) telling them to send the RSP back to ODFW for improvement.
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Nick Chambers grew up on the Rogue River in the Grants Pass area of Southern Oregon. His affinity for steelhead fishing was spawned on the Rogue but has taken him to rivers from California to Alaska, conducting fisheries work and exploring rivers in his free time. After working for Trout Unlimited a number of years, he is now in graduate school at the University of Washington. His research focuses on the early life dispersal of steelhead fry from redds.
Big thanks to Chambers for sharing photos and materials regarding the RSP for this blog post.