Biologists: Klamath fish still need help

By JEFF BARNARD, Associated Press Writer Thu Jul 26, 11:50 PM ET
GRANTS PASS, Ore. — A panel has recommended continued federal protection for two kinds of fish in the Klamath Basin amid pressures to find solutions to regional water woes that led to a cutoff of irrigation water in 2001.
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The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Thursday the review by a panel of biologists found that one species in the upper basin, the short nosed sucker, is still at risk of extinction and should remain protected under the Endangered Species Act.
The Lost River sucker is not at risk of extinction in the foreseeable future, so it should be reclassified as a threatened species, the agency said.
A panel of 12 scientists representing government agencies and interest groups reviewed various sources of information about the fish and made the recommendations to the fish and wildlife service.
The review was prompted by a petition from a group called Interactive Citizens United to take the fish off the endangered species list. There is no specific timetable for when the agency might act on the recommendations, spokeswoman Alex Pitts said from Sacramento, Calif.
Joe Kirk is chairman of the Klamath Tribes, whose members once caught and preserved the fish for winter fare. The tribes hold an annual ceremony honoring the fish, once a staple for them.
Kirk said the fish and wildlife service was correct to keep legal protections for the fish in place.
"We have not seen significant recovery of any fisheries," he said in statement. "In fact, it should have continued both species as endangered."
The Klamath Basin spans southern Oregon and northern California.
One of the leading threats to the fish now is poor water quality, which is not likely to improve any time soon, the review found. It is not clear why one fish is doing better than the other.
Greg Addington of the Klamath Water Users Association, which represents farmers, said the improved condition of Lost River suckers showed that habitat restoration was paying off, but more work needs to be done with federal agencies and the Klamath Tribes to find lasting solutions.
Court battles over how to divide scarce water between farms and fish continue.
But farmers, Indian tribes, conservation groups and California commercial fishermen say they hope to have a deal worked out by November to settle many of the issues, including whether to remove four dams on the Klamath River to increase salmon spawning habitat.
The suckers were protected as an endangered species in 1988 after their numbers plummeted from loss of habitat from draining lakes and marshes to create farmland, and to overfishing.
That protected status led the federal government to shut off irrigation water to most of the 1,400 farms of the Klamath Reclamation Project in 2001 to ensure enough water for the suckers in Upper Klamath Lake, the irrigation system's primary reservoir.
The move was also meant to help the threatened coho salmon in the Klamath River.
A U.S. House panel holds a hearing next Tuesday to look at what role Vice President Dick Cheney played in a decision to restore irrigation, which was followed by the deaths of some 70,000 salmon in the Klamath River in 2002 due to low water levels.
Pitts said that since 2001, the federal government has been spending about $85 million a year on various fish habitat and water conservation projects in the basin.