What Will It Take to Delist Our Threatened Carmel River Steelhead?

​Lorin Letendre, CRWC President

The National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) published in 2013 a Recovery Program for our distinct population of steelhead trout named the South-Central Coast Steelhead (SCCS).  The "grade" they gave the Carmel River steelhead recovery at that time was "Poor," as the numbers of adult steelhead in our river had declined to the low hundreds if even that many.  NMFS stated that to delist (remove) our SCCS from the Threatened Species list a number of conditions would have to be met including: mean annual run size of 4,500 adults, adequate ocean conditions, density of spawning fish, and certain fish genetic histories in our river.  We are far from reaching the target of annual steelhead runs of 4,500 adults, and the other required conditions are also unfavorable at this time.  Many governmental agencies including NMFS, State Coastal Conservancy, and Monterey Peninsula Water Management District, as well as local non-profits such as Trout Unlimited, Carmel River Steelhead Association, and Carmel River Watershed Conservancy have worked tirelessly since the Recovery Plan in 2013 to help improve the conditions in the watershed conducive to steelhead recovery and much progress has been made to improve those conditions (see CRWC Watershed Health Report Card here).  The Carmel River Task Force has been coordinating all these recovery efforts as well.  Still, much remains to be done if we are to restore our historic steelhead population and eventually to remove the SCCS from the list of Threatened Species.  Community support will be essential in achieving that goal.

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