Q: What areas are affected by Endangered Species Act listings of salmon and steelhead?
A: Significant portions of Washington, Oregon, California and Idaho are affected by ESA listings of salmon and steelhead  ESA recovery plans are being developed for all these areas. There are 27 distinct population segments of steelhead or evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) of salmon listed under the ESA.

Q: What is the purpose of the ESA?
A: The primary purpose of the ESA is the conservation of endangered and threatened species and the ecosystems upon which they depend. The ultimate goal of such conservation is the recovery of endangered and threatened species and their ecosystems so that they no longer need the protections afforded them under the ESA. The ESA provides a number of regulatory and planning tools to assist with this conservation goal. Among other things, the Act requires the development of recovery plans for endangered or threatened species. These plans serve as an important tool to organize and guide the recovery process and ensure that recovery is achieved.

Q: What is a recovery plan?
A: The ESA and NOAA Fisheries Service recovery planning guidance require that recovery plans must (1) assess the factors affecting the species; (2) identify recovery (delisting) goals; (3) identify the entire suite of actions necessary to achieve these goals; and (4) estimate the time and cost required to carry out these actions.

Q: What do we mean by recovery?
A: Recovery is the process by which the decline of an endangered or threatened species is arrested or reversed, and threats removed or reduced so that the species’ survival in the wild can be ensured. The goal of the ESA is the recovery of listed species to levels where protection under the ESA is no longer necessary.

Q: How is NOAA Fisheries approaching recovery planning?
A: Recovery plans need to be scientifically credible and have the support, or “buy-in,” of those who need to contribute to recovery. Recovery plans also need to be consistent with NOAA Fisheries Service legal mandates to provide for sustainable fisheries and to meet our treaty and trust obligations to Native American tribes. NOAA believes that it is critically important to ground the recovery planning process in the many state, regional, tribal, local, and private conservation efforts already underway throughout the region and has established a recovery planning process to maximize local involvement and capitalize on ongoing efforts. To develop recovery plans that meet ESA statutory requirements as well as goals for local involvement, NOAA Fisheries has organized the 27 listed ESUs into seven recovery areas, or “domains”: Puget Sound; Willamette/Lower Columbia; Interior Columbia, which has 3 sub-domains of Mid Columbia, Upper Columbia and  Snake; Southern Oregon/Northern California; North-Central California Coast; South-Central California; and California Central Valley. There is also an Oregon Coast restoration area.

Q: What is the role of technical recovery teams (TRTs)?
A: Technical recovery teams (TRTs) are teams of six to ten scientists from NOAA Fisheries Service and from other government and non-government entities. They have a mix of expertise in salmon biology, population dynamics, conservation biology, ecology, and other disciplines necessary for setting recovery standards and measuring recovery efforts. NOAA Fisheries Service appoints TRT members once they've met certain screening criteria. All TRTs are asked to identify the historical populations within each listed ESU and to recommend population and ESU-level goals for de-listing. TRTs may also provide technical reviews of recovery plan products as they are developed by local groups or by NOAA, identify factors for decline and limiting factors for each ESU, and identify research, monitoring and evaluation needs.

The TRTs will work in coordination with teams of existing scientists from state, federal, tribal, and local agencies, and in concert with ongoing conservation planning efforts in each region. In some areas, state and tribal managers and others have already begun the work of establishing recovery goals, and where this work has already occurred, NOAA Fisheries intends that the TRTs will consider this work.  There will be considerable opportunity for public involvement throughout the entire process, and TRT products will be peer-reviewed and distributed for public comment.

Q: What will recovery goals look like?
A: The ESA requires recovery plans to contain “objective, measurable criteria” for de-listing. Recent court decisions have established that these criteria not only must address not only biological goals but must also include goals that relate to the threats that caused the species to become listed. For Pacific salmon, biological goals will include criteria for both salmon populations and ESUs. Population criteria will be expressed in terms of population abundance (numbers of adult spawners), productivity (population growth rate), spatial distribution, and genetic diversity. Because not every single population may need to be recovered to high levels of health, ESU criteria will provide a framework for deciding how many and which populations to recover to what levels of health. “Threats” criteria will address habitat degradation, harvest, disease and predation, regulatory mechanisms, and any other factors affecting the continued existence of the species.

Q: What constitutes a salmon population?
A: Even among biologists, the term "population" has been defined in a variety of ways. In its most general form, a population of salmon is defined as a group of fish of the same species that occurs in a given habitat. The NMFS defines a salmon population more specifically as a group of fish of the same species that spawns in a particular lake or stream at a particular season and which does not interbreed substantially with fish from any other group spawning in a different place or in the same place at a different season. For salmonids, two groups are considered to be independent populations if their level of interbreeding does not substantially alter either group or affect their risk of extinction over a 100-year time frame.

Q: What is an evolutionarily significant unit?
A: An evolutionarily significant unit (ESU) is a collection of one or more salmon populations that share similar genetic, ecological, and life history traits but differ in important ways from salmon in other ESUs. Salmon ESUs are considered to be "distinct population segments" under the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). Because a species, as defined in the ESA, can include subspecies, salmon ESUs can be listed under the ESA if they are threatened or endangered. Because the ESA does not explain or define how "distinct population segments" should be identified, NOAA Fisheries Service has developed a policy to do this for salmon based on the ESU concept.

Q: Who will write recovery plans?
A: NOAA Fisheries Service believes that it is critically important to ground the recovery planning process in the many state, regional, tribal, local and private conservation efforts already underway throughout the region. The agency has established a recovery-planning process to maximize local involvement and capitalize on ongoing efforts. In some cases, local and regional planning groups may write recovery plans with NOAA Fisheries’ participation. In other cases, local groups may write certain elements of recovery plans. In some cases, NOAA may write recovery plans. In all cases, the federal government is seeking extensive local involvement in the process.

Q: Who will approve recovery plans?
A: NOAA Fisheries Service must approve recovery plans based on ESA statutory requirements and any relevant regulations and agency guidance.

Q: Who else helps to recover salmon and steelhead?
A: Recovery depends on all individuals and entities whose actions have the potential to both harm and conserve salmon, steelhead, and the ecosystems upon which they depend. There is no silver bullet. All sectors, including fish harvesters, land and water users, hatchery program managers, and others will need to do their part for recovery to occur. NOAA Fisheries Service is responsible for ensuring that recovery plans are developed and implemented. However, in many cases, we do not have the authority to undertake many of the actions needed. Other federal agencies, state, local, and tribal governments, local subbasin and watershed planning groups, and individual land and water users need to direct their efforts toward helping recovery in a coordinated manner.

Q: Are enforcement actions part of a recovery plan?
A: Enforcement is an important regulatory tool for implementing the ESA and it will be considered, where effective and appropriate, as a means to improve survival in recovery plans. NOAA Fisheries Service hopes that recovery plans provide better context for regulatory actions, so that decisions can be made about where to target actions, including enforcement, most effectively.

Q: Why should I participate in recovery planning?
A: Implementation of recovery plans will help us halt and reverse the decline of listed salmon and steelhead throughout the Pacific Northwest. By targeting resources at the greatest threats, recovery plans will also help ensure an efficient use of resources. Local participation in recovery planning increases local control over the actions that are incorporated into a plan. This, in turn, increases the likelihood of full implementation of the plan and will help us move faster toward recovery and de-listing of these valuable natural resources.

Assurances can take other forms in addition to the regulatory assurance discussed above. Assurances can be provided in the form of NOAA support for funding priorities, statements of NOAA support for programs and actions, NOAA acceptance of state or local-level recovery guidelines, and NOAA’s inclusion of local planning efforts into ESA recovery plans.