At the request of the North American Salmon Stronghold Partnership, the Wild Salmon Center has been working with scientists across the Northwest to identify a network of watersheds important to the long term survival of salmon and steelhead. The network has been selected based on biological criteria; from this network, the Stronghold Partnership will identify sites where opportunities exist to forge creative and cross-jurisdictional approaches to salmon conservation. In order for the North American Salmon Stronghold Partnership to choose salmon strongholds, the Wild Salmon Center held workshops to rate species specific populations across the Pacific Northwest. We organized two expert workshops in Portland, Oregon to rate populations in the Columbia Basin (April 20, 2007), and to rate populations on the Oregon/Washington coasts and in Puget Sound (May 9, 2007). We held another workshop on April 27, 2007 in Medford, Oregon to rate populations in Northern California and Southwest Oregon. We also conducted several online and phone interviews to rate populations in the Sacramento Valley and Southern California Coast and portions of Washington Coast and Puget Sound. Participating scientists included experts from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), USDA Forest Service (USFS), Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW), California Department of Fish and Game (CDFG), Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG), Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW), California Resource Conservation Districts (RCDs), Trout Unlimited, University of California Davis (UC Davis), California Trout (CalTrout), and other regional experts. Using these ratings, we identified strongholds for each salmon and steelhead species and run by summing the scores for the three ratings described above. Scores ranged from 0 (extinct) to 16 (wild, diverse, and highly viable) for each population and run timing. To determine which basins could be considered Salmon Strongholds, we looked for ratings of 12 to 16. In the few instances where a species/run did not achieve a 12 anywhere in the geography under consideration, we accepted a ranking of 10. To check this approach, we verified that salmon populations considered strategically important by most experts had been included. Our goal was to identify sites that are most important and that most experts believe would support long term survival of salmon and steelhead in the face of anthropomorphic and catastrophic change. As climate and habitat conditions change, we would expect the network to gradually shift as well.
