39 



[Statement of F. Lorraine Bodi can be found at the end of the 

 hearing.] 

 Ms. Unsoeld. Thank you. Mr. Tienson. 



STATEMENT OF THANE TIENSON, COUNSEL, SALMON FOR ALL 



Mr. Tienson. Thank you. I am Thane Tienson. I am here today 

 on behalf of the commercial salmon fishing industry. I am some- 

 body who grew up in the industry and I am from Astoria, Oregon, 

 which is in Congresswoman Furse's district and right across the 

 river from Congresswoman Unsoeld's district, and as both of you 

 know the industry is centered in those districts so we have an 

 enormous concern with the shape of the Salmon Recovery Plan. 



We are very concerned, not only about the specifics of the plan 

 itself, but the principles that will guide the adoption of a plan be- 

 cause we assume that whatever those principles are that they will 

 guide not only this plan but others as well and they will have rami- 

 fications extending well beyond salmon and well beyond the Colum- 

 bia River Basin. 



I am particularly concerned and I know I speak for the commer- 

 cial salmon fishing industry about the harvest sections of that plan 

 because I think the harvest sections as well as those sections deal- 

 ing with the institutional changes and with downstream migration 

 really collectively make us extremely uncomfortable with the plan 

 and in our view the principles that should guide a recovery plan 

 simply aren't manifested in this plan. 



I am assuming that those principles include the following. One, 

 you want an objective plan, a plan that is long on science, short 

 on politics. You want a plan that enjoys the support of Federal, 

 State, tribal fish managers and scientists, a plan that will survive 

 judicial scrutiny but also a plan that will discourage further court 

 challenges, the agency decisionmaking. 



You want a plan that is balanced and proportional but is propor- 

 tional in the sense that although shared sacrifices are certainly 

 called for, its primary emphasis must be on those actions and prac- 

 tices that have brought the salmon to their precipitous decline. 



And above all you want a plan that works, a plan that if imple- 

 mented will not only restore the listed stocks to be taken off the 

 ESA list but one that will restore all stocks in the region to har- 

 vestable levels of abundance that we can preserve our commercial, 

 tribal and sport fishing industries and protect our obligations to 

 the treaty tribes. 



If that is the test, and I submit that it should be, then I must 

 tell you that particularly with respect to those sections of the plan 

 I just talked about, this plan not only fails, it fails miserably. 



It is a plan that because of its insistence on the need for yet 

 more studies and a continued reliance on barging these juvenile 

 salmon to sea, I submit is more of a blueprint for extinction than 

 it is for recovery and survival of these stocks. 



The harvest section, as you know, calls for mandatory elimi- 

 nation of the gill net fishery over the next eight years and a 20 per- 

 cent reduction in the ocean commercial salmon fishery over the 

 next eight years which in my mind translates effectively to its 

 elimination as well. 



