Endangered and Threatened Wildlife; 90-Day Finding on a Petition To List Oregon Coast and Southern Oregon and Northern California Coastal Chinook Salmon as Threatened or Endangered Under the Endangered Species Act

Issuing agencies

Abstract

We, NMFS, announce a 90-day finding on a petition to list the Oregon Coast (OC) and Southern Oregon and Northern California Coastal (SONCC) Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) Evolutionarily Significant Units (ESUs) as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) or, alternatively, list only the spring- run Chinook salmon components of the OC ESU and the SONCC ESU as threatened or endangered under the ESA. The Petitioners also requested that we designate critical habitat concurrently with the listing. With respect to the request to list the entire OC and SONCC ESUs, we find that the petition presents substantial scientific and commercial information indicating the petitioned actions may be warranted. For the request to list only the spring-run components of those ESUs, we do not find that the petition presents substantial scientific and commercial information indicating that the petitioned action is warranted. We will conduct status reviews of the OC and SONCC Chinook salmon ESUs to determine whether the petitioned actions are warranted. To ensure that the status reviews are comprehensive, we are soliciting scientific and commercial information pertaining to these species from any interested party.