Biological Status of the Washington Coast Chinook Salmon Evolutionarily Significant Unit: Report of the Status Review Team

On 17 July 2023, the Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Rivers (hereafter, “the Petitioners”) submitted a petition to the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to list the spring-run Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) on the Washington coast (WC) as a threatened or endangered evolutionarily significant unit (ESU) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) or, alternatively, to list WC Chinook salmon (inclusive of all run types) as a threatened or endangered ESU. The Petitioners also requested the designation of critical habitat concurrent with ESA listing. In 1999, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) had identified the WC Chinook salmon ESU as comprising populations of spring-, summer-, and fall-run Chinook salmon spawning north of the Columbia River and west of the Elwha River, and had determined that the ESU did not warrant listing as threatened or endangered under the ESA (USOFR 1999b). In response to the petition, the Northwest Fisheries Science Center (NWFSC) convened a Status Review Team (SRT) in 2024, consisting of scientists from NWFSC and the NMFS West Coast Region (WCR).