APPENDIX 



March 11, 1993 



Additional Material Submitted for the Hearing Record 



John F. Palmisano, Ph.D. • Bio. Consultant • 503/645-5676 • 1990 N.W. 156th Ave. • Beaverton, OR 97006 



March 16, 1993 



The Honorable Bruce F. Vento, Chairman 



Subcommittee on National Parks, Forest, and Public Lands 



United States Congress 



House of Representatives 



2304 Raybum House Office Building 



Washington, D.C. 20515 



RE: Corrections and Additions to the Oversight Hearing of March 1 1 , 1993 



Dear Chairman Vento: 



I am writing to request that the following corrections and additions be made to the record of the 

 March 11, 1993, Oversight Hearing on Watershed and Fish Habitat Degradation on Public Lands 

 and National Forests in the Pacific Northwest. 



My affiliation was incorrectly stated on the Witness List. For the record, I am Dr. John F. 

 Paimisano, an independent fisheries scientist from Portland, Oregon. I am not affiliated with 

 Oregon State University. 



Mr. Thane Tiensen of Salmon for All from Portland, Oregon, misrepresented my position on 

 marine mammal-salmon interactions. Contrary to what he stated or implied, 1 do not believe that 

 marine mammals, such as seals and sea Uons, are solely responsible for the current decline of 

 salmon in the Pacific Northwest. On the contrary, salmon have coevolved with marine 

 mammals, never completely succumbing to these predators or avoiding them. Instead, harbor 

 seal and California sea lion populations have been increasing by 4 to 12 percent per year since 

 the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972. Thus, current seal and sea lion predation has a 

 more significant impact on salmon than in the past because salmon populations have been 

 declining while marine mammal populations have been increasing. It is simply a matter of 

 arithmetic; larger numbers of predators and smaller numbers of prey increase the current impacts 

 of predation. 



I attempted to present a fair and balanced description of the factors that have caused salmon 

 populations to decline in the Pacific Northwest. While I acknowledged that a multitude of 

 factors, including forestry, contributed to the decline of salmon, Mr. Tiensen refuses to 

 acknowledge that overfishing contributed to these declines. Regardless of what has caused these 

 fish to decline, each year insufficient numbers of mature fish escape the fishery to spawn. In 

 Washington State, only 41 percent (46 of 113 runs) of salmon and steelhead trout stocks meet 

 agency established annual spawning escapement goals (see Exhibit 1). In addition, annual total 

 harvest rates are excessive. Optimum harvest rates for Northwest salmon should be between 40 

 and 70 percent. Instead, several salmon runs have annual harvest rates of 80 and 90 percent and 

 higher (see Exhibit 2). 



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