Summer Chum Salmon Conservation Initiative: Supplemental Report No. 5 Interim Summer Chum Salmon Recovery Goals

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and Point No Point Treaty Tribes, with the assistance of National Marine Fisheries Service and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, completed the Summer Chum Salmon Conservation Initiative (SCSCI) in April 2000 (WDFW and PNPTT 2000). This initiative is intended to provide the basis for protection and recovery of Hood Canal and Strait of Juan de Fuca summer chum salmon. It addresses specific management strategies and actions applicable to artificial production, harvest and habitat. The initiative also describes performance standards measured by abundance (run size), productivity, spawning escapement and management actions that would lead to recovery of the summer chum salmon. However, it does not describe specific recovery goals. This paper addresses that task.

The recovery goals apply to abundance, escapement, productivity and diversity of the natural origin, summer chum. Because the information upon which the goals are based is expected to improve over time, the goals are currently characterized as interim and will be revised as more information becomes available. Interim recovery goals for individual summer chum stocks and for the Hood Canal Evolutionarily Significant Unit (ESU) are addressed in this paper. The following sections include brief discussions of the need for recovery goals, the background for interim recovery goal development and the approach used, followed by a description of the interim recovery goals and their derivation.