It’s still too early to tell if the Makah tribe’s unexpectedly large catch of 20,000 chinook salmon during its winter treaty troll fishery is going to have a detrimental impact — or none at all — on upcoming fishing seasons, a state official said Tuesday.
Doug Williams, public affairs officer for the Department of Fish and Wildlife, spoke just after the agency released its highly anticipated pre-season salmon forecasts in Olympia.
“Obviously, that’s a question that is on a lot of folk’s minds,” Williams said when asked if the Makah’s catch of chinook was going to affect other fisheries, as many anglers have feared.
“But it’s too soon in the process to determine if there is an impact or not.”
Williams said Fish and Wildlife officials have another five to six weeks of pre-season planning to do to see what impacts could befall two fisheries in particular.
Those include the Puget Sound chinook harvest management plan, which runs from May 1 through April 30, 2006, and the Snake River Falls chinook harvest management plan, which runs from Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, 2006.
“For any more specifics about the Makah’s fishing, it’s really too soon to determine what kind of impacts we’re going to be feeling,” Williams said.
Makah fishery
In February, Fish and Wildlife officials said the Makah tribe had overfished wild chinook salmon — a threatened species in certain parts of the Northwest.
The officials had expected a Makah take of black mouth salmon to be about 1,600.
After the Makah tribe denied having fished irresponsibly, Fish and Wildlife officials admitted that the tribe hadn’t broken any laws and that only 114 of the 20,000 chinook salmon caught by tribal anglers were believed to have been federally classified as threatened.
On Feb. 3, the Makah announced an early end to their winter treaty troll fishery, which started on Oct. 1 and was scheduled to run through April 15.
