Salmon

Chinook Salmon are in Crisis

Puget Sound Chinook salmon are listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act and show very few signs of recovery. At best, Chinook salmon populations have remained about the same size since they were listed in 1999. Many populations have had small, 1-2 percent average increases in abundance each year since the listing, but wide year-to-year variability suggests that this is not a significant trend towards recovery. While Puget Sound Chinook salmon populations are not collectively improving, there are differences among the twenty-two populations The Suiattle population, for example, is close to achieving its abundance recovery goal. Productivity, a measure of population growth rate, also remains low for Puget Sound Chinook.

The regional target for Chinook salmon is two or more natural-origin populations in each biogeographic region meet their abundance recovery goals to achieve self-sustaining, harvestable salmon runs and sustained, measurable increases in natural-origin Chinook salmon abundance in all populations, by 2050.

View more detailed data on Salmon web page. Visit the Puget Sound Vital Signs page for more data and information on Puget Sound Vital Sign indicators, including salmon.