B. Stocks and Their Status

The Washington State Salmon and Steelhead Stock Inventory (SASSI) identifies 88 unique populations of salmon stocks in the NOPLE geographic area, which make up 15 ESUs/DPS (including the unique Lake Crescent Trout).

Today, the strength of these stocks ranges from strong to extremely weak. Four NOPLE-area ESUs/DPS are currently listed as Threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA):

• Puget Sound chinook,
• Eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca – Hood Canal summer chum,
• Lake Ozette sockeye, and
• bull trout.

The following ESUs are not currently listed but are of great local economic/cultural importance or occur only within the NOPLE geographic area:

• Washington Coast Chinook
• Lake Pleasant Sockeye
• Olympic Peninsula Coho
• Olympic Peninsula Steelhead
• Lake Crescent Trout

Diversity and complexity of this magnitude prompted us to design a comprehensive strategy that would allow us to better focus our project activities.

Our project strategy is primarily stock based. Recognizing that stock information from SASSI and the Limiting Factors Analyses is either outdated or incomplete for our purposes, the TRG updated and added to that information as an aid in developing the NOPLE Strategy. Our Watershed Data Matrix (Appendix A) includes the most current stock status information for each geographical unit, and also information on extirpated stocks, the existence of strays, population trends (i.e., increasing, decreasing, or stable), and hatchery activity. Updated stock information within the NOP Watershed Data Matrix was used, in large part, to assign qualitative measures to many of the Technical and Scientific Criteria and Factors discussed in Prioritized Watersheds (Section D)

For more information, see

• Stock Status and Trends (Table 2)
• Watershed Data Matrix (Appendix A)
• Current Hatchery Information (Table 4)
• NOPLE ESU/DPS stock - links to NOAA/USFW information
• NOPLE SASSI/SaSI population - links to SaSI maps and reports

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