Pacific Salmon and Steelhead
Pacific Salmon and Steelhead
Quick Facts
Spring Chinook Salmon. Credit: Michael Humling, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
Spring Chinook Salmon. Credit: Michael Humling, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service
About
Pacific salmon and steelhead have a dynamic life cycle that includes time in fresh and saltwater habitats. These fish are born in freshwater streams and rivers, migrate to coastal estuaries, then enter the ocean where they mature. They usually return as adults to the same streams where they were born to spawn and begin the cycle again.
NOAA Fisheries manages and protects several species of fish in the Salmonidae family in both the Atlantic and Pacific. Some are threatened or endangered and protected under the Endangered Species Act. Others are targeted by commercial and recreational fisheries and are managed under the Magnuson-Stevens Act to maintain healthy, sustainable population levels.
Pacific salmon and steelhead include the following species:
Chinook Salmon
Chum Salmon
Coho Salmon
Sockeye Salmon
Pink Salmon
Steelhead Trout
Learn about our work to manage and protect salmon and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest:
Featured News
Researches with the Fisheries Collaborative Program at the University of California at Santa Cruz deploy equipment to measure predation rates on juvenile salmon in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. Photo: Brendan Lehman
Tulalip tribal youth singers and dancers kicked off the celebration of new federal funding for tribal fish hatcheries.
The removal of four large dams from the Klamath River allows salmon to again reach about 400 miles of their original habitat that had been blocked for many decades. Photo courtesy Jason Hartwick/Swiftwater Films
A chinook salmon. Credit: iStock
Alaska Fisheries
Salmon fisheries provide for commercial, sport, subsistence, and tribal harvest in ocean and inland waters of Alaska. Steelhead are harvested in sport and subsistence fisheries.
Salmon Fisheries
The North Pacific Fishery Management Council manages salmon fisheries of the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ) off Alaska under the Magnuson-Stevens Act to maintain healthy, sustainable population levels. The Council developed the Fishery Management Plan for Alaskan Salmon Fisheries (Salmon FMP) in the EEZ off Alaska under the MSA.
The Salmon FMP allows a commercial troll fishery in the EEZ off Southeast Alaska, and closes the remaining EEZ off Central and Western Alaska to commercial salmon fishing. All other salmon fishing occurs in State of Alaska managed waters (inside 3 nautical miles) or in one of three historical state-managed net fishing areas that extend into the EEZ. The Salmon FMP does not cover the fisheries in these three state-managed fishing areas:
- Cook Inlet
- Prince William Sound
- Alaska Peninsula
The Salmon FMP delegates management of the commercial troll fishery in Southeast Alaska to the State of Alaska and, under the Pacific Salmon Treaty, the U.S.-Canada Pacific Salmon Commission. The Southeast Alaska troll fishery is a mixed-stock, mixed-species fishery that primarily targets chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) and coho salmon (O. kisutch), with pink salmon (O. gorbuscha), chum salmon (O. keta), and sockeye salmon (O. nerka) taken incidentally.
NOAA Fisheries' West Coast Region has jurisdiction over the salmon species listed as endangered or threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
Learn more about Alaska salmon fisheries
Steelhead Fisheries
Steelhead are managed by the State of Alaska. They are harvested in state sport and subsistence fisheries.
West Coast Fisheries
NOAA Fisheries works in cooperation with federal, state, tribal, and Canadian officials to manage salmon and steelhead fisheries in ocean and inland waters of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and California. These fisheries are managed under the Magnuson-Stevens Act to maintain healthy, sustainable population levels.
Ocean Salmon Fisheries
NOAA Fisheries works with the Pacific Fishery Management Council and the Pacific Salmon Commission to manage harvest of salmon in the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone off the coasts of Washington, Oregon, and California. The Council's Salmon Fishery Management Plan guides the management of these salmon fisheries based on the terms of the MSA. The plan covers Chinook and coho salmon, and sometimes pink salmon near the Canadian border. Sockeye, chum, and steelhead are rarely caught in ocean fisheries.
Learn about ocean salmon fisheries on the West Coast
Salmon and Steelhead in Coastal Bays and Tributaries
Some fisheries are not managed under the MSA by NOAA Fisheries or the Pacific Fishery Management Council.
Washington and Oregon
Salmon fisheries in coastal bays and tributaries in Washington and Oregon are managed by the states and tribes.
Learn about salmon fisheries management in Washington and Oregon
In conjunction with states and tribes, specific area management has also been established:
- Puget Sound Salmon and Steelhead Fisheries
- Columbia River Basin Salmon and Steelhead Fisheries
- Snake River Basin Salmon and Steelhead Fisheries
California
Salmon and steelhead fisheries in tributaries of California are managed by the state.
Management Overview
NOAA Fisheries has listed 28 population groups of salmon and steelhead on the West Coast as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act. Primary listing and recovery responsibilities for salmon and steelhead belong to NOAA Fisheries. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, other federal and state agencies, and tribal governments also play important roles in recovery.
Learn about the conservation and management of these species
What We Do
Our West Coast Region works with partners to protect, conserve, and recover salmon and steelhead by addressing the threats these animals face and by restoring the habitat on which they depend.
Recovery Planning and Implementation
The ESA requires us to develop and implement recovery plans for salmon and steelhead listed under the ESA. Recovery plans identify actions needed to restore threatened and endangered salmon and steelhead to the point that they are again viable and a functional element of their ecosystems and no longer need protection. Although recovery plans are guidance, not regulatory documents, the ESA envisions recovery plans as the central organizing tool for guiding and coordinating recovery efforts across a wide spectrum of federal, state, tribal, local, and private entities. Recovery planning is an opportunity to find common ground among diverse interests, obtain needed protection and restoration for salmonids and their habitat, and secure the economic and cultural benefits of healthy watersheds and rivers. Recovery planning is a collaborative effort that draws on the collective knowledge, expertise, and actions of communities and partnerships.
Find recovery plans for West Coast salmon and steelhead
Habitat Restoration
Through habitat restoration, we work to undo the damages done to coastal wetlands and salmon-bearing streams. Nearly half of historic tidal wetlands have disappeared from Oregon's coastal estuaries; while in Puget Sound more than 80 percent of tidal wetlands have been lost and vast areas of floodplain wetlands have been cut off from rivers by levees or filled for development. In California, nearly 90 percent of the wetlands have been lost from habitat destruction mainly spurred by a booming population and economic development. We work with our partners to reconnect these marshes and floodplains to tidal or riparian waters and to restore habitat. We restore spawning and rearing habitats for fish, including salmon and steelhead, and improve fish passage by removing dams or replacing undersized culverts.
Learn more about the restoration of salmon and steelhead habitat
Hatchery Programs
Habitat alterations, hydroelectric development, and consumptive fisheries have impacted most of the salmon and steelhead populations in the Pacific Northwest. Hatcheries, or artificial propagation, are one tool to help support wild populations and provide fish for harvest.
Learn about salmon and steelhead hatcheries on the West Coast
Upstream and Downstream Passage
Dams change the way rivers function, and may interfere with the life cycles of salmon, steelhead, and other animals. They are barriers to juvenile salmon migrating to the ocean, and obstacles as adult fish return to their natal streams to spawn. Dams also affect the way water moves down a river, by changing the amount and timing of flow, as well as its temperature and chemical characteristics.
For salmon to thrive, it is important to provide safe, swift passage for juveniles traveling to the ocean and for adults migrating back to their spawning grounds. There are many types of passage infrastructure in use at and around dams, depending on factors such as a dam's age, size, location, and purpose. Sometimes passage facilities are added many years after a dam is built.
Hydropower project reviews in Alaska
Hydropower project reviews on the West Coast
Reintroduction Efforts
Because of habitat destruction and hydropower dams on migratory rivers, many salmon and steelhead species no longer occupy their historical habitats. Reintroducing a species into its historical range is often critical to its recovery.
The ESA provides an important tool to facilitate the reintroduction of threatened and endangered species such as salmon. Section 10(j) of the ESA provides NOAA Fisheries and the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service authority to designate populations of listed species as "experimental." This designation allows us to reestablish self-sustaining populations in regions that are outside the species' current range when doing so fosters its conservation and recovery.
Learn more about species reintroductions
Protected Salmon & Steelhead
Chinook Salmon
Nine evolutionarily significant units (ESUs) of Chinook salmon are protected under the ESA:
- Upper Willamette River Chinook Salmon
- Snake River Spring/Summer-run Chinook Salmon
- Snake River Fall-run Chinook Salmon
- Puget Sound Chinook Salmon
- Lower Columbia River Chinook Salmon
- Sacramento River Winter-run Chinook Salmon
- Central Valley Spring-run Chinook Salmon
- California Coastal Chinook Salmon
- Upper Columbia River Spring-run Chinook Salmon
Chum Salmon
Two ESUs of chum salmon are protected under the ESA:
Coho Salmon
Four ESUs of coho salmon are protected under the ESA:
- Southern Oregon/Northern California Coast Coho Salmon
- Oregon Coast Coho Salmon
- Lower Columbia River Coho Salmon
- Central California Coast Coho Salmon
Sockeye Salmon
Two ESUs of sockeye salmon are protected under the ESA:
Steelhead
Eleven distinct population segments of steelhead are protected under the ESA:
- Lower Columbia River Steelhead
- California Central Valley Steelhead
- Middle Columbia River Steelhead
- Upper Willamette River Steelhead
- Central California Coast Steelhead
- Northern California Coast Steelhead
- Puget Sound Steelhead
- Upper Columbia River Steelhead
- Snake River Basin Steelhead
- South-Central California Coast Steelhead
- Southern California Coast Steelhead