LONGVIEW — Comments will be accepted through Jan. 22 on a new plan to align state fisheries and hatchery operations to support recovery of wild salmon and steelhead in the lower Columbia River basin.
The Lower Columbia Conservation and Sustainable Fisheries Plan was produced jointly by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Lower Columbia Fish Recovery Board. It is available for review at www.lcfrb.gen.wa.us.
Comments can be mailed to LCFRB, 2127 Eighth Ave., Longview, 98632, sent via email to info@lcfrb.gen.wa.us.
Management strategies in the plan include those put into action since 2009 along with others proposed for the future, said Cindy Le Fleur, regional fish program manager for Southwest Washington.
“The goal of this plan is to return natural-origin salmon and steelhead populations to healthy, harvestable levels in the Columbia River Basin,” Le Fleur said. “We’ve already taken significant steps toward that goal, and we want to hear what people have to say about past and proposed actions.”
Key actions taken to date include:
• Incorporating wild fish into the hatchery broodstock for chinook, coho and steelhead.
• Designating three rivers as wild steelhead gene banks by discontinuing hatchery releases in the East Fork Lewis and North Fork Toutle/Green rivers, as well as continuing not releasing hatchery steelhead on the Wind River.
• Installing weirs to control the number of hatchery fish on the spawning grounds on the Grays, Elochoman, Green, Coweeman, Cowlitz, Kalama, and Washougal rivers.
• Testing the use of purse seines and beach seines to selectively harvest hatchery salmon in designated areas of the lower Columbia River.
• Expanding mark-selective recreational fisheries, and requiring anglers to retain any hatchery steelhead they catch in some waters.
The plan also can be found on the Department of Fish and Wildlife website at http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/01767.
