Thank you for your continuing interest in restoring endangered Atlantic salmon to Maine rivers. As noted in your recent editorial and column, “Saving Salmon” and “Set dinner place for wooly mammoth,” the returns in the eight salmon populations protected under the federal Endangered Species Act have been disappointing in the past few years, but we urge you and your readers not to give up on the recovery effort.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have presented a draft recovery plan that is available for public review through Sept. 16, and we will be in Maine on July 14 in Machias, and July 15 in Augusta for public meetings on the plan. We urge everyone who is interested to review and comment on the plan, which can be downloaded from: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/readingrm/Recoverplans/DraftATSplan.pdf

The draft plan lays out the most important and most achievable actions to benefit recovery, as well as the areas where more information is needed to understand what may be restraining restoration. This action plan is substantial, and critical to seeing more endangered salmon returning to Maine.

Wild Atlantic salmon, throughout their range, are in trouble. There appear to be risk factors at work in every phase of the salmon’s life from freshwater to the marine waters where they fully mature. The draft recovery plan, as you have noted, does not single out one or two culprits. It goes much further, because the problem goes much further. Once wild salmon populations are lost, experience shows us that re-establishing runs is an extremely difficult and expensive proposition, and may not be accomplished by stocking alone.

Removing and modifying dams provides significant environmental benefits for numerous species, including Atlantic salmon, but it is really an initial step in overall salmon restoration. The $50 million to remove dams on the Penobscot River Restoration Project, for example, would also require a sustained commitment of funds to achieve the long-term goal of recovering wild salmon populations.

The current level of returning Atlantic salmon to the Penobscot reflect the annual stocking of approximately half a million salmon smolts. When the total number of returns are compared to the capacity of the Penobscot, the returns are comparable to those being achieved in the endangered salmon populations.

The listed Atlantic salmon populations, as well as the Penobscot River population, represent genetically unique components of Atlantic salmon in North America. Maintaining the genetic integrity of these populations is critical to the recovery of Atlantic salmon throughout Maine. Actions in the draft recovery plan and actions designed to rebuild salmon in the Penobscot are complementary, and should not be viewed as “one or the other.” Both are critical to the ultimate goal of recovering Atlantic salmon in Maine.

Mary A. Colligan is assistant regional administrator for Protected Resources at NOAA Fisheries, Northeast Region.

Dr. James Geiger is acting assistant regional director, Ecological Services at the U.S.

Fish and Wildlife Service, Northeast Region.