Federally Listed Salmonid Species

In order to analyze how an activity or structure could adversely affect any species, it is necessary to understand the ecology and biology of that species, particularly within the subject area. The subject area includes Lakes Washington and Sammamish, but the information should be applicable to other lakes within the Tri-County area that are utilized by ESA-listed or Candidate species. Chinook salmon stocks occurring in the Puget Sound Evolutionary Significant Unit (ESU), which includes tributaries of Lakes Washington and Sammamish, are listed as Threatened by NMFS under the ESA (U.S. Federal Register, 24 March 1999). NMFS has also designated coho salmon stocks in the Puget Sound-Strait of Georgia ESU as Candidates, which are eligible for listing under the ESA (U.S. Federal Register, 25 July 1995), but NMFS has not chosen to list them at this time. In addition, the USFWS has designated bull trout in the Coastal-Puget Sound Distinct Population Segment (DPS) as Threatened (U.S. Federal Register, 1 November 1999) (Table 1). A petition was submitted to the USFWS on 16 March 2000 for an emergency listing of the early run Issaquah Creek kokanee as Endangered. The petition occurred following both the scope development, and the literature collection phases of this review. Thus, kokanee-specific data could not be incorporated into this report.

Table 1. Listed and Candidate Fish Species in the Lake Washington Watershed

Species	Federal Status	State Status	ESU/DPS1
Chinook salmon Oncorhynchus tshawytscha	Threatened March 1999	Candidate	Puget Sound ESU
Coho salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch	Candidate July 1995	None	Puget Sound -Strait of Georgia ESU
Bull trout Salvelinus confluentus	Threatened November 1999	None	Coastal-Puget Sound DPS

¹ ESU = Evolutionarily Significant Unit, the species definition used by the National Marine Fisheries Service

DPS = Distinct Population Segment, the species definition used by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service