NOAA’s Fisheries Service, the federal agency charged with protecting northwest salmon listed under the Endangered Species Act, ha sasked for public comment on the recovery plan of sockeye salmon in Lake Ozette, its shore, tributaries and the Ozette River. The Fisheries Service has taken two years to develop the plan with input from local citizens and landowners. Recovery plans are a requirement for species listed under the ESA.
In 1999 the sockeye salmon of Lake Ozette were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The recovery plan is part of a larger commitment made by NOAA’s Fisheries Service to develop salmon recovery plans throughout the region. The recovery plan has incorporated elements of more than 60 subbasin and watershed plans from all across the northwest, for salmon and steelhead in the interior Columbia basin, the Snake River basin, the Oregon coast and Puget Sound areas.
According to the Service the main aim of the plan in part is for naturally spawning Lake Ozette sockeye that are sufficiently abundant, productive, and diverse to provide significant ecological, cultural, social and economic benefits. The plan will rebuild Lake Ozette sockeye to levels that will provide ecological, cultural, social, and economic benefits. The plan provides a range of recovery actions that address the factors affecting sockeye at all stages of its life cycle.
NOAA’s Fisheries Service has produced the proposed plan over two years with the active participation of the Lake Ozette Steering Committee, a group made up of local citizens, landowners, forest managers, biologists and representatives of several county, state, tribal and federal entities, and the Washington governor’s salmon recovery office.
NOAA Fisheries Service said that it would set a schedule of public workshops in Port Angeles and Sekiu, Wash., over the next several weeks to discuss the draft. A final recovery plan could come as early as the end of this year.
