20 



change co wild fall Chinook salmon in Ch» Snake River, the BRT 

 felt it voiild be premature Co conclude that the ESO no longer 

 exists . 



Since 1990, four years of additional data are available concerning 

 strays past Lower Granite Dan and the question of whether or not this 

 Btock of salmon still meets the NMFS standard of a "species" from an ESA 

 standpoint should be addressed in the status review. Further, the 

 historic stock of Snake River fall chlnook is currently represented by 

 two groups of fish: 



(a) fish associated with Lyons Ferry Hatchery, fish not presently 

 protected under the ESA' because they are not classified as being 

 in the Snake River fall Chinook salmon ESU by NMFS; and 



(b) progeny of fish spawning in the wild in the Snake River, fish 

 which are protected under the ESA b«cause they are the fish 

 defined by KHFS to be in the Snake River fall Chinook salmon ESU. 



Fish readily cross between the ESA protected portion of the population 

 and the ESA uoprotected portion of the population across generations due 

 to brood stock collections and straying. Up-to-date genetic information 

 concerning introgression of Columbia River strays on the "natural" 

 population should be suimarized, analyzed, and presented. Models should 

 be developed of the likely "genetic pool" of fish defined as "naturals" 

 based upon various assumptions concerning the fitness of Snake River 

 strays and Columbia River strays as they enter the spawning grounds used 

 by the "naturals'. Key questions and points that need to be addressed 

 by a change in status review of the Snake River fall Chinook salmon ESU 

 include: 



• Is it logical to have both a protected and an unprotected 

 portion of the remnant endemic stock of Snake River fall 

 Chinook? 



• Is it logical to have put into place a system of ESA mandated 

 protection where members of the population move into and out of 

 the ESU across generations and hence move in and out of the 

 protected class? 



• la it logical to apply ESA mandated protection to the portion 

 of the stock that likely least resembles the historic endemic 

 stock? 



• Should the ESU be modified and redefined to include Lyons Ferry 

 Hatchery fish? And if so, is this modified ESU threatened or 

 endangered? 



• Does the protected portion of the stock (or as an alternative, 

 both portions of the stock) still meet the species standard or 

 has introgression resulted in a hybrid stock that no longer 

 meets the ESU criteria for ESA protection? 



• Should the appropriate ESU be Snake River-Upper Columbia River 

 fall Chinook? And, if so, is this potential ESU threatened or 

 endangered? 



DISCUSSION 



Escapeaant 



The longest continuous set of complete data concerning abundance of 

 Snake River fall Chinook are the counts of these fish as they passed 

 over Ice Harbor Dam; counts are available from 1965 through 1994 (Table 

 1; Figure 1). Counts of adult fall chinook over Ice Harbor Dam 

 decreased ten-fold from levels of about 10,300 per year from 1965-1974 

 to levels of about 1,300 per year from 1975-1979. These reductions 

 reflect the stock reduction associated with construction of the full set 

 of lower river dams. Counts for the period 1980 through 1990 (pre- 



