Guest columnist
How will we know when the kings come back?

By Ross Anderson
Special to The Times

	Ross Anderson
	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

It is now five years since Puget Sound chinook salmon were listed for federal protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). That decision was greeted with trepidation by builders, farmers and others who expected to bear much of the costs. Yet, most of us Northwesterners are committed to do whatever is necessary to preserve salmon runs for our grandchildren.

So now is a good time to ask: How are we doing so far? Are Puget Sound kings teetering on the brink of extinction?

Nope. The fact is, most wild salmon runs, including prized chinooks, are on the rebound. From the Skagit River to the Columbia and beyond, biologists are recording dramatic increases. Scientists believe this has less to do with our rescue efforts, and more to do with Mother Nature — lots of food in the ocean, moderate rains and terrific spawning conditions.

Great! say the critics. So what's the problem? Leave us alone so we can get back to business.

Environmental groups wag their fingers and warn: This is a temporary environmental blip, and when conditions change, fish populations will ratchet downward again. To some greens, the ESA has become an end in itself. Listing critters is more important than restoring them.

That's a recipe for political indecision. Our mission is to actually restore those salmon runs, take them off the list and celebrate our success.

Yet, neither scientists nor politicians want to talk about it. After decades of study and literally billions of tax dollars, scientists still lack the tools they need to provide an accurate picture of what factors influence salmon populations. We're still obsessed with counting fish, rather than assessing the factors that affect their survival.

Now comes Steven Cramer, an Oregon fisheries biologist and senior fellow with Seattle's Discovery Institute, who believes he has a better way. In three decades of research, Cramer has focused on devising a quantitative method — a computer model — for assessing salmon populations river by river, run by run, across the region.

One of the problems with studying salmon is that they spend most of their life cycle in the ocean, where scientists can't study them closely. Scientists deal with this in part by tagging fish before they migrate to sea, then collecting statistics on their returns. The resulting data is entered into computer models that project future performance.

Cramer takes what scientists have learned from observing fish in freshwater, and combines that data with what is known about their ocean migrations. Then he ties in a model of how fish habitat is altered by dams, development and other man-made influences. Done right, that model should determine whether the problem is fixed, and suggest how to prevent future problems.

Cramer identifies four stages to recovery:

• Discovery: How is a specific fish population functioning?

• Prescription: If it's not doing well, how can we fix it?

• Adaptive management: Is our plan working?

• Sustainability: Once it's fixed, how can we sustain that population and prevent another decline?

No computer model is perfect, he says. But, like the scientific method itself, his approach depends on trial and error, constant adjustments to the model. When actual fish returns diverge from what the model projected, biologists tweak their plan accordingly.

"We use the analogy of driving a car to a known destination," he says, "even though we may not know the exact highway conditions or the exact route."

Along the way, scientists will keep track of factors that influence salmon populations — competition with other fish, commercial and sports fishing, environmental factors such as rainfall and ocean temperatures. Each of these risk factors is entered into the model and constantly updated. If the restoration plan is working, actual returns should come reasonably close to what the model had projected.

To test his approach, Cramer applied it to existing salmon runs, beginning with the Sauk River in Snohomish County. He collected all the available measurements of factors that affect Sauk River fish, and entered the data into his model.

It worked, he says. The model projected fish runs very close to reality.

Then he did the same with 20 more salmon runs in five Northwest rivers. This model included 23 environmental and man-made variables, he says, but the dominant factor proved to be how well salmon survived during their ocean migrations. It still worked.

Cramer's work does not tell us when or even whether to take endangered salmon runs off the federal list. That is a political decision, not a scientific one. But Cramer's model offers a potential bridge, a forecast of future runs, including a probability that a given run will be sustainable over a period of time. And sustainability is the measure of success under the ESA.

That's a crucial step toward making the Endangered Species Act work. If listing of salmon and other wildlife becomes an end in itself, with no real prospect of declaring success, then the law will eventually lose credibility.

But, equipped with this new tool, fisheries managers can begin to make meaningful forecasts. And Puget Sound chinook can go the way of the gray whale and the bald eagle — off the list and back into their rightful role as a regional icon.

Ross Anderson is a Seattle freelance writer. He is a former editorial writer for The Seattle Times and also reported on political and environmental issues for the paper. He has worked with the Cascadia Project at Discovery Institute.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company