Hood Canal Summer Chum Salmon Recovery : A Success Story in the Making

Hood Canal summer chum salmon (including the eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca) were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999.  Recovery planning and implementation were underway prior to the listing, with harvest reductions and supplementation programs enacted in the early 1990’s.  The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Point No Point Treaty Tribes distributed the Summer Chum Salmon Conservation Initiative (SCSCI) in April 2000.  The initiative described a comprehensive plan for the implementation of summer chum salmon recovery in Hood Canal and eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca.  A Summer Chum Recovery Plan, prepared by the Hood Canal Coordinating Council, incorporated the harvest and artificial production management provisions of the SCSCI and also addressed habitat protection and restoration.  The Recovery Plan was formally adopted by NMFS under rule 4(f) of the Endangered Species Act in March 2007.

Interim recovery goals for summer chum have been developed by the State and Tribal co-managers based on historic population sizes, and include abundance, escapement, productivity, and diversity targets.  More recently, the Puget Sound Technical Recovery Team (PSTRT) has identified two independent summer chum populations (Strait and Hood Canal) within the ESU and viable salmonid population criteria providing for low extinction risk for these two populations.  The Recovery Plan supports managing for recovery at the level of the Co-managers’ individual stocks (or what may be described as sub-populations of the PSTRT’s two independent populations) as compatible with and a reasonable intermediate step toward the PSTRT’s long-term population viability criteria. 

A comprehensive monitoring program has been implemented. This paper reports on the progress towards achievement of the recovery goals for summer chum.  The outlook for Hood Canal summer chum is certainly much brighter than it was just ten years ago.