A Survey of Healthy Native Stocks of Anadromous Salmonids in the Pacific Northwest and California

This report summarizes a survey of healthy native stocks of anadromous salmonids in the Pacific Northwest and California. We used a questionnaire approach combined with spatial analysis to describe the status and distribution of stocks considered to be in relatively good condition. These stocks now constitute a small fraction of the region's historic anadromous salmonid resource but are critical to maintaining current resource productivity. Several agencies have developed, or are in the process of developing, computerized databases that will help organize predominantly quantitative data on native stocks of anadromous salmonids. Our survey supplements those efforts by summarizing some of the knowledge of biologists familiar with the stocks and by making status assessments that at times go beyond conservative analyses of quantitative data. The survey identified 99 healthy native wild stocks of salmon and steelhead that biologists consider to be at least one-third as abundant as would be expected without human impacts, including 20 considered at least two-thirds as abundant. More than three-quarters of these stocks are fall chinook, chum salmon, or winter steelhead in Puget Sound or coastal watersheds of Oregon or Washington. Fewer healthy populations remain of summer steelhead and coho, pink, and sockeye salmon and spring or summer chinook. We suggest that healthy stocks provide unique opportunities for conservation and research that are at least as important to the future of the region's anadromous salmonids as those associated with at-risk stocks.