Article Warns That DC Cuts May Impact Future Puget Sound Chinook Fishing, Returns

A New York Times article out this morning details how Chinook production at nearly a dozen hatcheries in Western Washington is said to be in “limbo” because cuts back in DC put a critical National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration staffer out of a job, placing future fisheries at risk.

That job?

“(To) ensure hatcheries complied with the Endangered Species Act before the fish were released into Puget Sound,” writes reporter Austyn Gaffney.

The article would seem to crystallize a concern raised in March at a Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Big Tent Committee meeting about “loss of services” to the state provided by federal employees such as NOAA’s Krista Finlay.

“If I don’t release millions and millions of salmon, there’s less this year and years going forward,” she told the Times. “If we don’t have salmon returning in 2027 and 2028, we don’t have offspring to release the following year, so it will take many, many years to repair this, if it’s even possible.”

Puget Sound Chinook were listed as threatened under ESA in 1999, and production of and fisheries for hatchery kings are tightly controlled to protect and recover wild fish. The recent Marine Area 10 blackmouth – or resident, or feeder, Chinook – season won’t see a second week because the number of angler encounters with unmarked, or nonhatchery, fish reached 99 percent after just four days of fishing.

Chinook production has also been cautiously increased at the state and federal levels in recent years to help feed southern resident killer whales, which preferentially feed on Chinook.

The Times reports that according to the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, the situation with Finlay’s job could impact roughly 12 million Chinook.

She lost her position in a February round of DOGE cuts after hiring on at NOAA 11 months ago following two-plus years as an intern and fellow there, according to the article, which also reports she’s since been reinstated but hasn’t been able to gain access to her work account.

Mark Baltzell – another fired NOAA staffer who featured in an early March press conference organized by Washington Senator Patty Murray (D) calling attention to in part the potential economic losses to the region – is also quoted by the Times, saying that diminishing the agency’s ability to perform work has add-on effects in terms of salmon management and recovery.

That’s echoed by NWIFC staffers and other tribal managers.

“Even if the funding were restored, or NOAA was able to hire additional staff, they’re likely going to hire folks with less experience and understanding of the issues,” David Troutt, Nisqually Tribe natural resources director, told the Times reporter. “I don’t know what the long term consequences of this might be.”

In a Northwest Fishletter article by K.C. Mehaffey also out today and warning about the situation, Northwest Sportfishing Industry Association Executive Director Liz Hamilton said, “It’s concerning to have a regulatory agency not have the staff to promulgate fisheries in a way that’s responsible to the resource and to the future of our industry.”

This morning, a WDFW spokesman was tight lipped when asked for comment on the article and whether it impacted state hatcheries.

“We’re monitoring potential implications. At this time, we continue to work with our state and federal partners on fish and wildlife commitments,” stated Samantha Montgomery, the agency’s acting communications manager.

The question of DC doings’ impacts on federal funding flowing to Northwest DFWs has come up in public forums in recent weeks, and the indications at those times have been along similar lines.

On March 20, WDFW Deputy Director Amy Windrope told the Fish and Wildlife Commission’s Big Tent Committee that there were uncertainties in how Congress’s recently passed Continuing Resolution to temporarily fund the national government “will play out between the federal agencies. But as of right now, we do not see a risk right now. We see risks, but not enacted now.”

Windrope was backed up by WDFW Chief Financial Officer Morgan Stinson: “I think that that’s dead right. We’re not out of the woods, but also those risks have not crystallized into exactly problems for us.”

The previous week in Salem, ODFW Chief Operating Officer Ken Lofflink told his state’s full Fish and Wildlife Commission that the agency had seen federal awards and contracts frozen and then unfrozen, awards removed from the federal payment system and then put back in, and messages from federal partners that funds would be frozen but that never actually happening, but that as of early March, “all of ODFW’s federal awards are active and available for drawdown, and everything is operating as business as usual, if you will.”

Back in Washington, on two consecutive March days, Commissioner Steven Parker of Yakima pointed out that it was about more than just federal dollars.

“I think we’re also concerned not just with budget cuts, per se, or those that affect us directly, but also the loss of potential loss of services that federal agencies provide in helping us in management,” he said on March 21 before the full Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission.

The previous day in the Big Tent Committee and in response to him, Windrope had replied, “That is also something that we’re tracking right now. Where the services that we need from our federal partners are not being delivered, we’re also flagging that for our (Attorney General) and for our Governor’s Office.”

Back before the full commission on the 21st, Parker reiterated his concerns and was told that the annual North of Falcon salmon-season-setting process had been “very different this year because NOAA has a much more limited ability to participate.” That was presaged by a NMFS administrator’s statements kicking off this year’s edition.

NOF’s final round starts tomorrow and is scheduled to wrap up next Tuesday.

As alarm bells are dinged, time will tell on all of it; stay tuned.