57 



Those studies and others conclusively show that a productive 

 stream ecosystem requires high spring flows to transport sediment, 

 to clean spawning gravels, and rescour important side channels, 

 which create fish rearing, spawning, and migration habitat needed 

 throughout the year. But the most instructive message gleaned 

 from such studies is that maintenance of fish production must 

 begin with a multi-disciplinary approach to manage entire water- 

 sheds. 



The Forest Service and BLM have made progress in the timber 

 harvest, grazing, and mining operations under multipurpose man- 

 agement concepts, compared to the single-purpose schemes that 

 prevailed in the earlier part of this century. However, private tim- 

 ber harvest, grazing, and farming have typically not been con- 

 ducted from a multipurpose perspective and thus continue to im- 

 pact fish habitat at an alarming rate. The bottom line is that we 

 may be able to lessen the fishery impacts of land management 

 practices on public lands but we will not protect fish habitat unless 

 we begin to view and manage watersheds as ecosystems. 



The Service is involved in multiple jurisdiction watershed res- 

 toration programs in the Klamath and Trinity river basins in Cali- 

 fornia, and the Chehalis and Elwha River basins in Washington. 

 These and other cooperative river basin restoration initiatives are 

 helping to correct the effects of past land management practices 

 and focus attention on the need to responsibly manage land and 

 water resources as a first line of defense. 



What is making these programs effective is the recognition 

 among private and public entities that all parties have a stake in 

 what others are doing throughout a given watershed. 



After leaving the spawning and rearing habitat in the upper por- 

 tions of watersheds, salmon and steelhead must then navigate 

 through or around dams, through man-made reservoirs, past thriv- 

 ing populations of exotic predators, and past nets and fish hooks. 

 No single challenge to salmon and steelhead survival can be viewed 

 as the "straw that broke the camel's back." They all must be 

 viewed as a whole or we will begin to see the extinction of stocks 

 beginning with the upriver population such as the Snake River 

 sockeye, currently listed as endangered, and the Sacramento River 

 winter run chinook, currently listed as threatened. 



Columbia River salmon and steelhead stocks have declined to 

 less than 10 percent of historic levels. Salmon and steelhead pro- 

 duction in northern California has declined from 10 million adult 

 fish to fewer than two million. All major coastal and Puget Sound 

 stocks have declined by 10 to 95 percent. Logging, grazing and 

 mining on public and private lands have played a historical role in 

 creating each of these resource crises. 



Mr. Chairman, the Service is not advocating the cessation of log- 

 ging, grazing, or mining in the Pacific Northwest. We recognize the 

 need to create a balance in the management of this Nation's natu- 

 ral resources. We know of proven methods to minimize and miti- 

 gate many land management impacts to salmon and steelhead pop- 

 ulations. The key is to start managing watersheds through coopera- 

 tive partnerships so that undocumented cumulative impacts do not 

 finally show up with the extinction of a fish stock. 



