Q. What is the Hood Canal Summer Chum Salmon Joint Resource Management Plan?
A. The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) and Point-No-Point Treaty Tribes (co-managers), pursuant to their authorities under U.S. v Washington, provided a joint resource management plan (RMP) for salmon fisheries that will affect ESA-listed Hood Canal summer chum salmon. The RMP is the harvest component of a document entitled Summer Chum Salmon Conservation Initiative - An Implementation Plan to Recover Summer Chum Salmon in the Hood Canal and Strait of Juan de Fuca. Go to the WDFW Website for a copy of the RMP considered in this evaluation. The stated goal of the RMP is to "...protect, restore and enhance the productivity, production and diversity of Hood Canal summer chum salmon and their ecosystem to provide surplus production sufficient to allow future directed and incidental harvest of summer chum salmon."

Q. What area and fisheries are effected by the RMP?
A. The RMP’s area encompasses all Washington coastal and Puget Sound salmon fisheries affecting the Hood Canal summer-run chum salmon evolutionarily significant unit, or ESU. The ESU includes all naturally spawned populations of summer chum salmon in Hood Canal and its tributaries, and populations in Olympic Peninsula rivers between Hood Canal and Dungeness Bay. All U.S. and Canadian salmon fisheries affecting Hood Canal summer chum salmon are accounted for in the harvest objectives described in the RMP.

Q. What is the harvest regime in the RMP?
A. The RMP establishes a harvest regime referred to as the base conservation regime (BCR). Under the BCR, summer chum salmon are caught incidentally in fisheries targeting other, more abundant and healthy populations. Most of the fisheries require non-retention of summer chum salmon. The BCR has the following elements:

1. A base set of fishery-specific management actions for fisheries in U.S. and Canadian pre-terminal, Washington terminal and Washington extreme terminal areas
2. Management unit and population abundance and escapement critical thresholds that trigger review of and possible adjustment of the management actions
3. Expected fishery specific exploitation rate targets and ranges based on application of the BCR on the Hood Canal and Strait of Juan de Fuca summer chum salmon management units
4. Overall management performance standards based on natural production against which to assess success of the RMP and the harvest strategy, and make necessary adjustments.

The BCR will remain in place until the co-managers incorporate the population recovery goals into the management structure. At that time, the co-managers will discuss with NOAA FISHERIES SERVICE what terms of the existing plan will continue.

Q. What can be expected in these fisheries during the BCR?
A. In any given year, the results of RMP management actions are designed to produce exploitation rates within the range of 3.3 to 15.3 percent on summer chum salmon bound for Hood Canal, and 2.8 to 11.8 percent on the Strait of Juan de Fuca populations. In any one year, fisheries may be managed for exploitation rates lower than this range, but the upper end of the exploitation rate ranges may not be exceeded. The expected average annual exploitation rate should be 10.9 percent on summer chum salmon bound for Hood Canal and 8.8 percent on the Strait of Juan de Fuca populations. The proposed RMP exploitation rates are considerably below historical levels. From 1974 to 1998, harvest impacts on the Hood Canal summer-run chum salmon ESU ranged from 2.7 to 81.3 percent (1.5-43.2 percent in Canadian fisheries, 0.4-10.1 percent in Washington pre-terminal fisheries, and 0.3-51.1percent in terminal fisheries).

Q. Will the RMP conserve listed species?
A. NOAA Fisheries Service has determined that the RMP adequately addresses all requirements specified under Limit 6, including that implementing and enforcing the RMP will not appreciably reduce the likelihood of survival and recovery of the ESU.

Q. Did the public have a chance to comment on the RMP before the final determination?
A. Yes. NOAA Fisheries Service published notice of a proposed evaluation and recommended determination of the RMP on Mar. 13, 2001. The public comment period closed Mar. 30, 2001. NOAA Fisheries Service reviewed comments received by the closing date. No issues were raised that required modifying the proposed evaluation and recommended determination.

Q. Will there be annual monitoring and reporting of the effectiveness of the RMP?
A. The RMP includes a monitoring and evaluation plan. It will assess fishing-related impacts to summer chum salmon, the abundance of naturally spawning fish for each of the identified management units, the effectiveness of the fishing regimes and general approach, and regulatory compliance. The RMP also requires a progress report be completed annually, with a more comprehensive plan review every five years. An annual plan progress report will be completed by May 31 of each year. NOAA Fisheries Service and the co-managers will use this information annually to assess whether impacts to listed fish are as expected, and to revise the RMP as necessary.

Q. Can the RMP be re-evaluated?
A. Yes. NOAA Fisheries Service may re-evaluate the RMP if: 1) it is determined that the RMP is not effective in the survival and recovery of listed salmonids; 2) new information reveals effects of the fisheries in a manner or to an extent not previously considered or analyzed; 3) the fisheries are conducted differently than prescribed in the RMP and the implementation terms, and in a manner that causes an effect on listed species that was not previously considered; or 4) a new species is listed by NOAA Fisheries Service within the management area of the RMP.

Q. How long will the RMP be in effect?
A. NOAA Fisheries Service will evaluate the effectiveness of the RMP in protecting and achieving a level of productivity commensurate with conservation of the listed salmon on a regular basis. If the plan is not effective, the agency will identify ways in which the joint plan needs to be altered or strengthened. If the responsible agency does not make changes to respond adequately to the new information, NOAA Fisheries Service will publish notification in the Federal Register announcing its intention to withdraw the limit on activities associated with that joint plan. Such an announcement will provide for a comment period of no less than 30 days. The agency will then make a final determination whether to withdraw the limit, so take prohibitions would then apply to harvest activities described in the joint plan.

Q. Who can I talk to about the 4(d) ruling for the Hood Canal summer chum salmon joint RMP?
A. E-mail Susan Bishop, or call her at 206-526-4587.