We’ve heard a lot of ridiculous policy ideas during this election season that won’t seem to end, but leave it to the National Marine Fisheries Service to make a last ditch push to steal the mantle of most absurd idea yet. This past Friday, the NMFS announced that “they want to add more hatchery-raised fish to the 28 Pacific Coast salmon and steelhead stocks listed under the Endangered Species Act.” Meaning they want hatchery fish (i.e. manufactured fish) that these agencies acknowledge pose a genetic and ecological risk to their wild counterparts to be protected under the ESA.
Expect to hear much more from us on this subject in the coming days but in the meantime we will let the absurdity of that speak for itself…
Link (via: ABC News)
This is not new, it’s just the latest round of updates identifying hatchery stocks that are part of the listed salmon and steelhead population. It happens with every 5-year status review, the latest of which (2015) came out earlier this year.
It’s been in place since the final “Hatchery listing Policy” in 2005: http://www.westcoast.fisheries.noaa…./70fr37204.pdf
http://www.westcoast.fisheries.noaa.gov/publications/frn/1993/58fr17573.pdf
Sorry, that was the original 1993 policy. Here is the link to the 2005, which was upheld in Fed court: http://www.westcoast.fisheries.noaa.gov/publications/frn/2005/70fr37204.pdf