March 1, 2002

 

Bob Lohn, Regional Administrator

National Marine Fisheries Service

Northwest Regional Office

7600 Sand Point Way NE

Seattle, WA 98115-0070

 

Dear Mr. Lohn,

 

We the undersigned are writing to express our concern and general objection over the National Marine Fisheries Service’s response to the most recent report from NMFS’ own Salmon Recovery Science Review Panel. We believe your recent letter “apologizing” to the Washington Co-managers over the Panel’s findings has undercut the credibility of the Scientific-Review process, if not the RSRP itself. We respectfully request that you formally acknowledge the independence, integrity, and scientific credibility of the RSRP. We further request that your proposed “technical” response to the RSRP report includes a thorough review of its findings, and that on completion of that review you direct your staff to examine NMFS harvest-policies accordingly.

 

In November 2001, the RSRP issued its report from its August 2001 meeting. During the three-day meeting, the Panel received presentations from NMFS, state, and tribal technical staff on a number of issues, including salmon-harvest management and its impacts on listed ESUs. The RSRP report was emphatically critical of NMFS’ approach to managing salmon harvest. Using strikingly unambiguous language, the Panel called the agency’s justifications for its harvest policies scientifically inadequate, stating flatly that at least some NMFS-approved harvest levels were “biologically unsustainable.”

 

These are just a few of the Panel’s more direct conclusions and recommendations:

·         “Despite hours of presentations and numerous probing questions… we remain somewhat mystified concerning the scientific justification for current allowable harvests.”

·         “NMFS personnel… use subjectivity and legalism, and their inability to promote a transition to terminal fisheries to justify biologically unsustainable harvest rates on several listed ESUs.” [Emphasis added.]

·         “NMFS should reexamine their policies and procedures for setting allowable yearly harvests and evaluating their long-term consequences.”

·         “NMFS should develop a rational [harvest] policy that does not demean scientific common sense.”

 

A reasonable observer might have expected NMFS to take such a harshly critical review with some seriousness. The report is troubling enough on its face, but whether or not the Panel is correct, the unequivocal nature of its report might at the very least have motivated NMFS to reexamine some of the technical foundations underlying its harvest policies. After all, NMFS itself convened the RSRP to evaluate all of the agency’s salmon-recovery efforts for “scientific credibility.” Instead, NMFS’ reaction

has been dismissive and unresponsive, and could be interpreted as an effort to discredit the report rather than respond to it, by extension discrediting the RSRP itself.

 

Public comments on the report by representatives of the Washington co-managers have ranged from claiming, “they [the RSRP] are not experienced with salmon” to bluntly calling the RSRP “uninformed,” “short-sighted,” “unprofessional,” and “biased.” Statements by NMFS personnel have been more diplomatic, but hardly less dismissive, from “the Panel didn’t ask the right questions,” to “maybe we didn't explain clearly enough.”

 

Brian Gorman of NMFS was quoted in major Northwest media outlets as saying, “our view is that this is principally a problem of our not telling the Panel what they need to know to understand what we do.” Your February 14 letter reportedly states that NMFS simply didn’t provide the Panel with “a clear understanding of the biological basis for setting allowable harvest levels.” Is it actually true that NMFS is not even considering whether the RSRP report has any merit whatsoever, whether the “problem” has anything at all to do with NMFS harvest policies or their technical foundations? These public statements appear to imply that the findings of your proposed technical response to the RSRP report have been preordained.

 

The assertion that the Panel simply  “misunderstood” NMFS’ methods (or worse, the implication they are unqualified to evaluate them) is not merely unlikely; it risks seeming disingenuous. The RSRP is made up of six of the most respected and accomplished ecological and biological scientists in the country. Several are widely published experts on wildlife-population modeling. When NMFS convened the Panel, it praised the RSRP as possessing “perhaps the most comprehensive body of knowledge on conservation biology in the nation.”

 

NMFS told the public that the appointment of the RSRP was “a significant step in the salmon-recovery process,” claiming that these independent experts would “guide” the technical work of recovery. The questions are begged: does NMFS consider the RSRP qualified to review salmon-recovery management, or doesn’t it? And what did NMFS mean when it told the public it would rely on the Panel to ensure the soundness of its recovery-science?

 

The implication that the RSRP’s criticism is somehow merely the result of miscommunication, or that harvest-management staff did not have adequate opportunity to make their case, does not hold much weight once the schedule of the August meeting is examined. The RSRP meeting spanned three full days. The first full day was spent in an “information garnering” workshop on harvest management. Senior NMFS and co-manager personnel had been invited to prepare and give presentations totaling over three hours. Susan Bishop of the NMFS Sustainable Fisheries Division had the opportunity to lead an additional two-hours of panel discussion on the “science of harvest management” and current and proposed harvest plans.

 

In its report the Panel made note of “hours of probing questions,” and complained that the presenters were “unnecessarily defensive, and at times even obfuscatory.” If NMFS staff felt the Panel just wasn’t getting it, it appears they may have had opportunity to see that and clarify their presentations during the meeting. Subsequent to the August meeting, the Panel had weeks to prepare its report. If they felt they lacked a “clear understanding,” they had opportunity to request more information. Clearly the Panel felt it had heard enough.

 

RSRP chair Robert Paine has said that while the Panel was critical, it tried at the same time to be constructive. He called the report, “simply a mechanism to focus on one of the great many issues that impact salmon.” The RSRP is not the enemy, and treating it like one undermines the credibility of both the Panel and NMFS.

 

Harvest managers have also reacted to the report by simply restating the case they made to the Panel, claiming their harvest plans are responsible based on their own modeling, and that the impacts on listed stocks are minimized because managers “know where fish go.”  But the overarching point of the RSRP’s report is that fisheries managers have not proven those assertions as a matter of science. The RSRP was looking for scientific justification for what they called the “counterintuitive” approach of allowing continued (and in some cases high) harvest pressure on declining stocks. For that justification, NMFS offered its population modeling (an area where the Panel has considerable expertise). Put simply, the Panel found the models wanting. What the agencies call “sophisticated,” “elaborate,” and “detailed” management techniques, the Panel called “impenetrable.” A fundamental tenet of science is that methods and conclusions must be replicable by other, independent researchers. If one reads between the lines, the RSRP report implies that current fisheries-management does not meet that critical standard.

 

Less ambiguously, the Panel explicitly recommended, “the… models used to set allowable harvests each year need to be much more thoroughly tested and validated.” To date, NMFS has completely failed to respond to this central recommendation in any serious way. It is also important to note that the report is not merely a litany of general complaints. It is filled with pointed, specific criticism of NMFS’ modeling approach, expressed in appropriate, technical terms. NMFS’ dismissal of the report does not even acknowledge these aspects of the RSRP’s report, let alone attempt to address them.

 

The RSRP will continue to oversee and evaluate NMFS’ policies on the whole range of issues that will effect the recovery of listed salmon and steelhead, not just harvest. It is absolutely true that harvest does not bear all the responsibility for salmon declines, and it should not have to shoulder all the weight of recovery efforts. Listed stocks will not recover without reforming all aspects of land- and water-use management. But that is precisely why the November RSRP report deserves a more serious and thorough response than NMFS has so far been able to muster. On any issue, harvest, hatcheries, habitat, or hydro-dams, salmon recovery will be severely compromised if NMFS too often allows politics and bureaucratic expediency to trump the recommendations of its own science-review panel.

 

We presume that NMFS convened the RSRP not only to enlist its contribution to salmon recovery, but also to reassure the public that recovery efforts are based on “well accepted ecological and evolutionary principles,” as the NMFS Northwest Salmon Recovery Planning web page proclaims. If NMFS simply dismisses the RSRP’s findings whenever it criticizes the agency’s approach, the public may reasonably ask why it is paying to convene the Panel. Conversely, if NMFS allows its staff and the agencies and stakeholders it regulates to assail the Panel’s credibility on this current issue, the credibility of recovery planning will be undermined in the future, when or if the RSRP gives future policy-proposals the imprimatur of endorsement.  

 

As NMFS prepares its “technical document” to respond to the RSRP report, we specifically request that it include the following measures:

 

1)      direct NMFS staff through a written memorandum, signed by you, to acknowledge the independence, integrity, and scientific credibility of the Salmon Recovery Science-Review Panel;

2)      thoroughly examine, and then credibly and responsibly address all the criticisms and the recommendations in the RSRP’s November 2001 report;

3)      specifically address whether and how NMFS will respond to the Panel’s recommendation to more thoroughly validate the salmon-population modeling that underlies its harvest management;

4)      provide the data and references that support all the conclusions and assertions of NMFS’ response and review. 

 

Without these measures, any claims that harvest policies are held to the same rigorous standards as other recovery actions will be undermined. If after reviewing the RSRP report, NMFS finds merit in any of the Panel’s conclusions or recommendations, it should make appropriate adjustments in its harvest policies, and review and amend any relevant Biological Opinions, Section-10 approvals, or 4d take-limitation processes. If, on the other hand, NMFS can make a credible, reasoned rebuttal of the report, it should do so – offering documented support – rather than offhandedly dismissing or prejudging the RSRP’s findings. The Panel, the public, and the salmon that NMFS is charged with recovering deserve nothing less.

 

Given the critical importance of the issues raised by these circumstances, both to the ultimate recovery of listed salmon and steelhead populations, as well as the public’s confidence in NMFS’ recovery strategies, we are also requesting a written response to this letter, accompanied by an estimated timeline of any action you have directed the NW Regional Office to take.

 

Thank you for your full consideration.

 

Sincerely,

 

 

Kurt Beardslee, Executive Director

Washington Trout

Duvall, WA

 

Signing For:

Jennifer Sampson, Executive Director

10,000 Years Institute

Bainbridge Island, WA

 

Paul Engelmeyer, NW Policy Analyst

Living Oceans Program; Nat. Audubon Society

Ten Mile Creek Sanctuary, Yachats, OR

 

Bill Bakke, Executive Director

Native Fish Society

Portland, OR

 

Peter Bahls, Executive Director

Northwest Watershed Institute

Portland, OR

 

Kris Balliet, Esq., Alaska Regional Director

The Ocean Conservancy

Anchorage, AK

 

Mark Powell, Director of Fish Conservation

The Ocean Conservancy

Vashon, WA

 

Caroline Bauman, President

Oregon Shores Conservation Coalition

Yachats, OR

 

Jim Myron, Conservation Director

Oregon Trout

Portland, OR

 

Lea Mitchell, Executive Director

Washington Public Employees

for Environmental Responsibility

Olympia, WA

 

Duggan Harman, President

Wild Steelhead Coalition

Bothell, WA