What Recovery Actually Means

Photo: Alaska Region U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service/Flickr

In a recent blog post over at Trout Unlimited, Haley Ohms and Rob Masonis tackle an important subject – what recovery actually means.

Ohms and Masonis specifically look at the efforts to recover salmon and steelhead stocks in the Pacific Northwest, and the language used to describe them as “recovered” by the Endangered Species Act. Is that language accurate enough? Does it reflect what it truly means for those vital species to be available in numbers viable enough for commercial, subsistence, and recreational use?

This is far from a case in semantics, as well. As Ohms and Masonis note, “despite the enormous consequences flowing from how salmon recovery is defined and, in turn, accomplished, there has not been a shared understanding among the public, stakeholders and fishery managers. This lack of clarity and shared goals has stymied progress. ”

That we have a lack of clarity regarding what “recovered” actually means is fairly shocking. It certainly explains why it feels like there’s a disconnect at times between parties who all have an interest in restoring salmon and steelhead to their native range.

The rest of the story goes into detail on recovery goals that make sense, and it’s worth your time to read in full, which you can do here.