National workshop convened to review the latest techniques available to quantify relationships between habitat features and fish production. The workshop focused on salmonids because of their importance on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, but effects on other non-salmonid populations were included since data is scarce in some areas. Coverage included methodologies for the quantification of the effects of habitat alteration on yield, empirical examples of the effects of physical and chemical habitat changes on stocks, and the permissable degree of extrapolation in assigning effects of habitat alteration to a stock.
The importance of salmon to the Pacific Northwest--economic, recreational, symbolic--is enormous. Generations ago, salmon were abundant from central California through Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to British Columbia and Alaska. Now they have disappeared from about 40 percent of their historical range. The decline in salmon numbers has been lamented for at least 100 years, but the issue has become more widespread and acute recently. The Endangered Species Act has been invoked, federal laws have been passed, and lawsuits have been filed. More than $1 billion has been spent to improve salmon runs--and still the populations decline. In this new volume a committee with diverse expertise explores the complications and conflicts surrounding the salmon problem--starting with available data on the status of salmon populations and an illustrative case study from Washington state's Willapa Bay. The book offers specific recommendations for salmon rehabilitation that take into account the key role played by genetic variability in salmon survival and the urgent need for habitat protection and management of fishing. The committee presents a comprehensive discussion of the salmon problem, with a wealth of informative graphs and charts and the right amount of historical perspective to clarify today's issues, including Salmon biology and geography--their life's journey from fresh waters to the sea and back again to spawn, and their interaction with ecosystems along the way. The impacts of human activities--grazing, damming, timber, agriculture, and population and economic growth. Included is a case study of Washington state's Elwha River dam removal project. Values, attitudes, and the conflicting desires for short-term economic gain and long-term environmental health. The committee traces the roots of the salmon problem to the extractive philosophy characterizing management of land and water in the West. The impact of hatcheries, which were introduced to build fish stocks but which have actually harmed the genetic variability that wild stocks need to survive. This book offers something for everyone with an interest in the salmon issue--policymakers and regulators in the United States and Canada; environmental scientists; environmental advocates; natural resource managers; commercial, tribal, and recreational fishers; and concerned residents of the Pacific Northwest.
Management of Anadromous Fish Habitat on Public Lands represents a watershed approach to managing public lands in Alaska, California, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The document summarizes the past management history and the amount and condition of riparian and aquatic components of watersheds containing anadromous fish for each state. The report, separated into three regions (coastal, Columbia and Alaska), outlines the critical components of successful management for these areas. Management actions, including establishing riparian reserves, conducting watershed analysis, and identifying key watersheds and watershed restoration activities, are needed to conserve and restore remaining wild stocks of anadromous salmonids.
Whether tributary habitat improvements have achieved, or are likely to achieve, the goal of recovering conditions favoring the production of salmonids in the Columbia River Basin is unclear. This report reviews the approaches, assessment procedures, and implementation strategies for habit improvement. It examines topics central to the recovery of tributary habitat: (1) the biological objectives related to habitat recovery; (2) the strategies for implementing restoration; (3) the incentives for implementing restoration; (4) the scientific foundation for habitat recovery; and (5) monitoring and evaluation. This review answers the question: What concepts and strategies should be incorporated in habitat recovery actions to improve their chances for success? Illus.
Conceptual separation of humans and natural ecosystems is reflected in the thinking of most natural resource management professions, including for estry, wildlife management, fisheries, range management, and watershed management (Burch 1971). Such thinking can deny the reality of the human element in local, regional, and global ecosystems (Bonnicksen and Lee 1982, Klausner 1971, Vayda 1977). As complex organisms with highly developed cultural abilities to modify their environment, humans directly or indirectly affect almost all terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems (Bennett 1976). Conse quently, information for managing watershed ecosystems is incomplete without consideration of human institutions and activities. Sociologists have studied the relationships between human societies and the land base or ecosystems on which they depend for over 60 years (Field and Burch 1990). These studies are distinguished by (1) a holistic perspec tive that sees people and their environments as interacting systems, (2) flex ible approaches that permit either the environment or human society to be treated as the independent variable in analyzing of society-environment re lations, and (3) accumulation of a substantial body of knowledge about how the future welfare of a society is influenced by its uses (or misuses) of land and water (Firey 1990).
