124 



level below 50% needs to be coinbined with a significantly negative 

 slope in the regression of average abundance on time to identify 

 chronic damage. 



Most of the Chinook salmon escapement survey areas in the 

 Columbia Basin clearly are both in chronic decline and have 

 critically low levels of spawners. It is our inference tbat many 

 of the Chinook populations represented by the survey areas are in 

 chronic decline. More than a quarter of the surveys are in the 

 badly damaged and decreasing category (see Figure 4) , while only 

 slightly more t-Yi^n a quarter of all surveyed localities are above 

 50V seeding, regardless of trends in abundance (see Figure 1) . 

 Among the 117 badly damaged survey localities, most (82) are at, or 

 below, 20% of seeding, the last time they were checked. Assuming 

 that these surveys may represent chinook salmon populations, there 

 are 82 chinook salmon populations in the Columbia Ba^in that have 

 been steadily declining for the past three generations, arid that 

 have managed to achieve spawning levels of only one- fifth of the 

 carrying capacity during the most recent spawning. If these 

 surveys represent populations, or portions of populations, then 

 they would cleeirly be candidates for accelerated recovery actions 

 (see CBFWA 1991) . 



