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Listings Keep Evolving

Two years after the National Marine Fisheries Service decided to protect steelhead trout using an approach based on evolutionary biology, the idea of Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUs) has become a reality. Populations of steelhead trout in California, Oregon, and Washington listed as threatened and endangered in late 1997 were divided into ESUs for management purposes. The ESUs aim to preserve genetic diversity in the population as a whole, but don't necessarily protect every population or stream.

The idea of using evolutionary biology as an organizing principle attempts to bridge the gap between those taxonomists who divide things into large categories and those who lean toward smaller classifications. ESUs also provide a way of avoiding the bureaucratic nightmare of preserving every little run and population. "The ESUs are sizeable chunks of habitat," says Robin Waples, the National Marine Fisheries Service official who came up with the concept. "We think this is the right level for federal management."

Since the ESU program went into effect, NMFS biologists have been consulting on large projects such as CALFED and with individual water districts on steelhead protection and recovery. No recovery plan for steelhead is in place yet, but that's the next step, biologists say.

The steelhead listings are facing familiar political fallout. For instance, three steelhead units in California have received protection: Central California coast steelhead, South Central California steelhead and Central Valley steelhead. Originally, NMFS had proposed listing two ESUs in northern California as well, but the agency dropped those petitions. One NMFS official, who asked not to be named, says of the agency's decision to drop the listing proposals for steelhead and coho in northern California and along the Klamath watershed, "I'd be dishonest to say that this wasn't politics."

But sportsmen and environmentalists, including the Federation of Fly Fishers of California and the Center for Biological Diversity, aren't going to let powerful interests, including timber and agribusiness, continue to block new fish protections. They have brought two lawsuits against NMFS for its failure to list steelhead and coho. Says the official, with a note of wonder in his voice, "We're gonna end up with virtually everything listed in California."

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