Establishing Goals for Pacific Salmon Habitat Restoration: What's Good Enough?

Many Pacific salmon and steelhead populations along the U.S.west coast are considered at risk of extinction. Habitat loss and degradation are common threats, and resource managers are establishing goals for Pacific salmon habitat restoration. Recovery planning is moving forward based on technical recommendations that were built upon the population characteristics of abundance, productivity, spatial structure, and diversity. A commonly asked question in discussions about recovery planning is how many fish or how many populations are needed for recovery. We suggest that a more appropriate question is what biological and physical processes need to be recovered or reestablished. When the question is asked this way, consideration of what parts and how many parts of the system are needed can be developed. This approach to conservation planning that recognizes the importance of habitat diversity, life history diversity, and variable environmental conditions is more likely to result in more resilient and therefore more persistent fish populations.