A Path Forward for Mark-Selective Commercial Fishing and Concurrent State Fisheries Management Policies in the Lower Columbia River Basin

Hatcheries pose a risk to wild salmon populations through various genetic, ecological, fishery, and facility-related mechanisms. Genetic risks occur when hatchery-origin salmon escape harvest or capture, stray to the spawning grounds, and interbreed with locally adapted wild salmon populations. Despite efforts to control the straying of hatchery-origin salmon to the spawning grounds through the use of weirs in tributaries of the lower Columbia River Basin, state fisheries managers in Washington and Oregon have failed to meet critical biological thresholds and federal provisions of the Endangered Species Act for the proportion of hatchery-origin spawners. This failure to remove excess hatchery-origin salmon and/or sufficiently curtail hatchery production has potentially jeopardized the survival and recovery of threatened wild salmon population groups in tributaries of the lower Columbia River and highlighted a substantial need for additional reforms to hatchery and harvest management. In this white paper, we propose a path forward for mark-selective commercial harvesting in the lower Columbia River to reduce the proportion of hatchery-origin spawners, advance state and federal compliance with the Endangered Species Act, and achieve concurrent fisheries policies between the states of Washington and Oregon.