Doing the Right Thing For Olympic Peninsula Steelhead

TCA’s Rationale for our Petition to List OP steelhead under the ESA

Olympic Peninsula Wild Winter Steelhead Photo by John R. McMillan

On August 1st, The Conservation Angler (TCA) and Wild Fish Conservancy (WFC) submitted a petition to list Olympic Peninsula (OP) steelhead for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA).

We know many people care about and are interested in the plight of OP wild steelhead and given the amount of convincing evidence contained in the petition, we outline several reasons an ESA listing is warranted.

Please note, however, this is not an exhaustive list or analysis of all the factors that support an ESA listing.  For a more detailed analysis we encourage people to read the petition, or at minimum, the executive summary, to better understand all the reasons why a listing is warranted. A copy of the petition can be found here on NOAA’s website.

Declining population size

The first concern is the status of winter and summer run steelhead. From smaller independent tributaries to larger, famous rivers, almost every population of winter steelhead on the OP is in long-term decline over their period of record.  This helps explain why a report by WDFW in 2018 found the OP steelhead Distinct Population Segment (DPS) had the second lowest proportion of populations with increasing trends in Washington State (See End Note-1(EN)).  As an example, mean annual run sizes from 1980 – 2017 declined by 37-46% in the Hoh, Queets, and Quinault Rivers, while the Quillayute River system population declined sharply since a peak in the mid-1990’s (EN-2).  Unfortunately, declines have continued since 2017 and as a result, fisheries were greatly curtailed (and sometimes closed) the past few seasons.

Wild Winter Steelhead Photo by John R. McMillan

In addition, compared to historical abundance circa 1940-1960, those same populations have declined by 61% - 81% in relation to their most recent five-year mean run size (2017-2021).  The decline for the Queets population increases from 66% to 89% when compared to cannery data from 1923, which is the oldest data point available, suggesting a very long downward trend in abundance over the past 100-years.

The situation for summer run steelhead is even more dire.  Summer runs in the Quillayute, Hoh, Queets, and Quinault Rivers are not monitored or managed, but snorkel surveys by the Olympic National Park and others indicate they are at critically low levels of abundance and are threatened with high levels of stray hatchery summer runs.

In general, smaller populations are less resilient to environmental and other disturbances than larger populations, and populations in long-term decline have less capacity to compensate than those that are not.  On the OP, long-term, chronic declining trends coupled with recent sharp downturns, missed escapement goals, and critically depleted summer runs put the overall population of steelhead at greater risk of extinction than when the National Marine Fisheries Service (See Busby et al. (1996)) conducted the last federal status review for the DPS (ESU at the time).

Reduced diversity

Wild steelhead diversity on the OP has been altered in ways that are detrimental to the resilience and productivity of the species. For instance, early returning wild winter steelhead (e.g., November – January) in the Quillayute, Hoh, and Queets Rivers are severely depleted and as a result, the breadth of run timing is far more compressed than it was historically. Steelhead will need to re-establish that earlier entry timing into freshwater, as they do further south in their range, to keep pace with climate change.

Levels of repeat spawning are also a concern. Based on scale samples collected in fisheries, the proportion of repeat spawning winter runs in the Queets River declined from 50% in the 1980’s to approximately 10% in recent years, while the Quillayute River population declined from a peak of over 20% in the late-1970s to near 10%. Quinault River repeat spawners have been around 1-2% the last few years. Repeat spawners are far more productive during their second spawning (EN-3), so their depletion has adverse implications for the productivity of OP wild steelhead. 

As mentioned, summer runs appear critically depleted and there is a strong heritable basis for the early-maturing summer run life history. Consequently, winter runs are unlikely to give rise to summer runs (EN-4,5). So, if the summer run life history is lost entirely, the overall breadth of run timing by wild steelhead would be greatly compromised.

Degraded habitat and a changing climate

Lower Hoh River Photo by John R. McMillan

Although a substantial amount of habitat in the four largest watersheds is protected in Olympic National Park, most smaller watersheds have no such protection and even in the major river basins, habitat outside the park has been altered and degraded.  The depleted stocks of steelhead must also adapt to a climate that is changing more rapidly than initially predicted.

Outside Olympic National Park there is widespread habitat degradation that is harmful to wild steelhead, ranging from reduced amounts of instream large wood to numerous landslides associated with road building and forest practices (EN-6).  And the frequency of peak streamflow events has increased in the Hoh River and elevated levels of sediment have altered the channel structure (EN-7), while summer baseflows have declined substantially in several streams.

Further, the size of glaciers in the headwaters of the Hoh, Queets, and Quinault Rivers have significantly declined due to climate change and most are predicted to disappear by 2070 (EN-8).

Last, but certainly not least, it is expected that over the coming years and decades, ocean conditions will become more variable, and the intensity and duration of fall and winter rains will shift, while the onset of summer will occur earlier and baseflows will be low for longer periods of time. 

If we protect them, wild steelhead could possibly adapt to some or all of these environmental changes, as evidenced by their current existence in similar climates along the coast of southern Oregon and northern California. Doing so will require management that restores and protects their diversity and resilience. Existing regulatory mechanisms do not safeguard this necessary diversity, which further supports the need to list these fish under the ESA.

What is Next?

Right now, we are in the 90-day review period, at the conclusion of which NOAA Fisheries will determine if our petition presents substantial scientific or commercial information indicating that the petitioned action (a listing as a “Threatened” or an “Endangered” species) may be warranted.

Again, please read the petition’s executive summary or the full in-depth analysis for greater insights into the plight of OP steelhead. Alternatively, read our Joint ESA Statement and FAQs by The Conservation Angler and Wild Fish Conservancy.

The Short and Sweet of it is we all love OP Steelhead. Photo by John R. McMillan

In summary, an ESA petition or a listing is not the enemy of anglers. Just the opposite is true. For example, the ESA has forced great change in dam operations, habitat restoration, and fishery and hatchery reform for steelhead in the Columbia and Snake River basins and elsewhere.  If not for previous petitions and eventual ESA protection, the plight of wild steelhead throughout the West Coast would likely be much worse – and some, if not most, fisheries that we enjoy today may not even exist.

We can rebuild wild steelhead populations on the OP.  We have the tools and knowledge to do so.  But it will only be possible if we strike a better balance between scientific knowledge, conservation practices, and management action.      

References

1.      Cram, J., N. Kendal, A. Marshall, T. Buehrens., T. Seamons, B. Leland, K. Ryding, and E. Neatherlin. 2018. Steelhead Risk Report: Assessment of Washington’s Steelhead Populations.

2.      McMillan, J.R., Sloat, M.R., Liermann, M. and Pess, G. 2022. Historical Records Reveal Changes to the Migration Timing and Abundance of Winter Steelhead in Olympic Peninsula Rivers, Washington State, USA. North Am J Fish Manage, 42: 3-23. 

3.      Christie, M. R., McNickle, G. G., French, R. A., and M.S. Blouin. 2018. Life history variation is maintained by fitness trade-offs and negative frequency-dependent selection. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 115(17): 4441–4446.

4.      Prince, D. J., O’Rourke, S. M., Thompson, T. Q., Ali, O. A., Lyman, H. S., Saglam, I. K., Hotaling, T.J., Spidle, A.P., and M.R. Miller. 2017. The evolutionary basis of premature migration in Pacific salmon highlights the utility of genomics for informing conservation. Science Advances, 3(8), e1603198. 

5.      Waples, R.S., Ford, M.J., Nichols, K., Kardos, M., Myers, J., Thompson, T.Q., Anderson, E.C., Koch, I.J., McKinney, G., Miller, M.R., Naish, K., Narum, S.R., O’Malley, K.G., Pearse, D.E., Pess, G.R., Quinn, T.P., Seamons, T.R., Spidle, A., Warheit, K.I., and S.C. Willis.  2022.  Implications of Large-Effect Loci for Conservation: A Review and Case Study with Pacific Salmon, Journal of Heredity, Volume 113, Issue 2, March 2022, Pages 121–144.

6.      Smith, C.J. 2000. Salmon and steelhead habitat limiting factors in the north Washington coastal streams of WRIA 20. Washington State Conservation Commission. Lacey, WA.  

7.      East, A. E., Jenkins, K. J., Happe, P. J., Bountry, J. A., Beechie, T. J., Mastin, M. C., Sankey, J. B., and Randle, T. J. 2017. Channel-planform evolution in four rivers of Olympic National Park, Washington, USA: the roles of physical drivers and trophic cascades. Earth Surf. Process. Landforms, 42: 1011– 1032.

8. Fountain, A. G., Gray, C., Glenn, B., Menounos, B., Pflug, J., & Riedel, J. L. 2022. Glaciers of the Olympic Mountains, Washington—The past and future 100 years. Journal of Geophysical Research: Earth Surface, 127, e2022JF006670.