May 27, 2011:  NOAA Fisheries has signed a biological opinion approving a plan that describes how the state of Washington and its Puget Sound Indian tribes will conduct the harvest of Puget Sound Chinook. These fish have been protected under the federal Endangered Species Act since early 1999.

The harvest plan is designed to allow a limited catch of Chinook, while providing sufficient opportunity for the population to recover. The biological opinion also considers the effect fishing has on Southern Resident killer whales. It acknowledges that fishing for Puget Sound Chinook may affect the Sound's killer whale population, which itself was listed as "endangered" under the ESA in 2005. The agency said the harvest plan will expire in 2014, a year earlier than the state and tribes had originally requested, so that it can more thoroughly investigate the relationship between Chinook and Puget Sound killer whales. Chinook are the principal food source for these killer whales.

The agency said that as part of that investigation, it will convene an independent science panel and hold three workshops, beginning this fall and extending into 2012, to "review scientific information on the ecology of Southern Resident killer whales, the extent to which salmon fisheries may be affecting their well-being, and the potential consequence of such effects on the survival and recovery of the whales."

These killer whales are also listed as endangered in Canada under that country's Species at Risk Act. Canada's Department of Fisheries and Oceans will jointly sponsor the science review panel and participate in the workshops.