100 



same types of disturbance on the private lands in the area. This 

 is one of the reasons that activities on Federal lands play probably 

 as great a role in this region in the declines of salmon runs. 



I might add that this region is not affected by dammed over riv- 

 ers. The rivers that we studied did not have dams on them. We 

 eliminated those two potentially confounding portions of decline in 

 this area. There is compelling evidence that habitat changes large- 

 ly resulting from logging have contributed in large measure to the 

 decline of these stocks. Fishing has probably played a role syner- 

 gistically with that. 



And one of the things I wanted to mention — Dr. Williams men- 

 tioned it^-the effects of change in the freshwater habitat are syner- 

 gistic. And you can go to the list of other factors that are causing 

 declines of salmon. Of course there are all kinds of species, and ^ye 

 have not begun to identify all the species that prey on salmon in 

 the ocean. So there is a long list of scapegoats to blame the decline 

 of salmon on, but the studies that have looked carefully at the 

 salmon ecosystem have demonstrated that when freshwater 

 ecosystems declined, the ability of those species to adapt to the 

 changes in the environment is very seriously degraded. And the 

 only reason that we still have naturally produced salmon in the Co- 

 lumbia Basin is that we have a few species that are intact and sur- 

 vival rates are able to make it through the gauntlet that they have 

 to pass through both up and down river. 



Something recent in the Columbia River Basin is interesting and 

 suggests the same point that in studies where we have been closely 

 following fish movements from the river through their system we 

 are starting to find that a large share of the mortality is occurring 

 before the fish get to the first dam. So somewhere in the fresh- 

 water environment above the dams we are losing lots and lots and 

 lots of fish. 



With the widespread loss of salmon habitat due to a range of ac- 

 tivities—a lot of this was lost in the early century— salmon and 

 other species have been isolated in headwater areas. And now what 

 you are seeing suggests a very aggressive program of logging in 

 these headwater areas that have come to serve as de facto refugia 

 for these species. And that is why we are seeing the dwindling 

 numbers that are very, very precarious. 



So, by default, essentially the way we manage these headwater 

 basins, most on public lands and most on the ones where the habi- 

 tat is going associated with roadless or other undeveloped lands, is 

 critical for the future of these fish and particularly the shortrange 

 future. 



When we look at a case study, say, on the Siskiyou based on our 

 research we have identified probably about 16 and as a matter of 

 fact the American Fisheries Society has identified about 16 water- 

 sheds around the Siskiyou Forest that seem to have a relatively 

 high habitat and diversity of the native fish species. About three 

 of those have partial protection in the existing wilderness. And 

 many critical lands are not protected in the wilderness. Only three 

 or four of those received protection under the spotted owl, the HCA 

 designations, that were in the original Thomas plan for spotted 

 owls which got some of the aquatic analysts going on identifying 

 these for aquatic species. And 10 of those are associated with 



