It will soon be a crime to harm salmon or steelhead in some urban areas in the Northwest. The National Marine Fisheries Service is planning to announce rules to that effect next week, a follow-up to last year’s listing of fish runs in Washington’s Puget Sound and Oregon’s Willamette River under the Endangered Species Act. The agency may allow local governments a role in deciding how to protect the fish. Many local governments are scrambling to act, proposing measures that would significantly affect new development sites, road building, and culverts. Meanwhile, further north, a group of scientists is criticizing proposed salmon plans in Canada as inadequate to ensure the protection of the fish.
