Key Takeaways
Summer chum are near recovery. Hood Canal and Eastern Strait of Juan de Fuca summer chum salmon are approaching recovery and may be there now. The populations are meeting two of the five measures–abundance and productivity–that the National Marine Fisheries Service uses to define viability.
The recovery plan has been part of the success of summer chum. The Hood Canal Coordinating Council developed the recovery plan and has worked with local governments, Tribes, and state agencies to implement it since 2006. The council can pull together policy and technical aspects to allow for focused attention on priorities and actions.
View Key Recovery Indicators
About the Region
Hood Canal is a glacier-carved fjord more than sixty miles long that forms the westernmost edge of Puget Sound. The canal is home to a unique species of salmon called Hood Canal summer chum. It also is home to the Hood Canal Coordinating Council, which is unique among the salmon recovery organizations in Washington because its members’ jurisdictions include all the geographic area of the summer chum Evolutionarily Significant Unit. (An Evolutionarily Significant Unit is a population of chum that is substantially reproductively isolated from other populations and that contributes to the evolutionary legacy of the species).
