Fish’s Status a Contentious Issue

The rare coho salmon is causing election-year headaches for the administration of Gov. Gray Davis, which is quietly attempting to delay a controversial decision on whether to grant the fish protection under the state’s Endangered Species Act.

State officials are meeting privately with environmental and fishermen’s groups, hoping to draft a compromise delaying a listing of the salmon, which is threatened by logging, farm irrigation and degraded streams in Northern California.

The compromise would lead to a plan to restore the beleaguered salmon in the next 12 to 18 months. But it would also delay the endangered species listing for the fish. That would please farmers and other interest groups that are already lobbying vehemently against such a listing.

Some critics see the proposed compromise as a political maneuver to shield Davis from a divisive debate akin to the one continuing on the Upper Klamath River. There, along the California-Oregon border, farmers have attacked the federal government and its endangered species laws in the fiercest water fight in the West.

“It’s an election year, and the governor doesn’t want to have any grief from the timber industry or the Farm Bureau folks,” said Zeke Grader, executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Assns.

Officials in Davis’ Fish and Game Department denied there were political motivations for moving ahead with the restoration plan.

“This has nothing to do with politics,” said state Fish and Game Director Robert Hight. “This has to do with how do we restore the fish.” By not listing the salmon, Hight said, various interests can be brought to the table, avoiding litigation and creating a plan that will provide optimal conditions for the fish.

Several environmental and fishing groups petitioned the state nearly two years ago to add the fish to the state endangered species list. Those groups have met several times with top Fish and Game officials to discuss the proposal to delay listing and instead proceed with a recovery plan.

Hight described the plan last week as a means to improve conditions for the fish.

The talks come as the state agency is more than a month late in filing a recommendation on whether to list the fish.

Already, farmers and ranchers in California’s Siskiyou County are organizing against the proposed listing of the coho salmon.

Coho salmon can be found in the Scott and Shasta rivers, which many farmers use for irrigation. If the state grants the coho protection as an endangered species, farmers fear they will be enmeshed in regulatory red tape and possibly be penalized if irrigation systems kill fish.

A state listing would afford the coho the highest level of protection, stiffening regulations on farmers, loggers and others who might harm the species.

“Say you’re a farmer who’s irrigated your fields for hundreds of years with a diversion, and somehow a coho gets stranded out on a field. [You] become a criminal,” said Pamela Giacomini, of the California Farm Bureau Federation.

Siskiyou County Administrator Howard Moody said he believes listing the coho would be counterproductive to the coho salmon’s welfare. Farmers and ranchers throughout the region have been adding screens to diversion ditches and taking other steps to protect the fish, he said. Such efforts could be stalled if landowners feared being cited for harming fish, he said.

The salmon debate is surfacing now because of the petition by sportsmen and environmental groups, who say coho salmon have been disappearing so rapidly that they warrant state protection. The fish has been protected since 1997 under the federal Endangered Species Act, but the state listing would extend protections.

The state Fish and Game Commission made the fish a candidate for listing in spring 2001, starting a clock requiring state officials to file a full report by April.

The talks on a conservation plan have caused unease among Yurok and Hoopa tribal members. Leaders of the tribes, which depend heavily on coho salmon for food, were not invited to the negotiations.

They learned about the talks from a reporter.

“That surprised us all, that there was a meeting going on,” said Susan Masten, chairwoman of the Yuroks, the largest tribe in the state and a staunch supporter of an endangered listing.

The Yurok reservation flanks the Klamath River for 44 miles, and the tribe has federal treaty rights to the fish. “I’m disappointed that they didn’t contact us,” Masten said.