Final Assessment of NOAA Fisheries' Critical Habitat Analytical Review Teams for 12 Evolutionarily Significant Units of West Coast Salmon and Steelhead

摘要

This report contains biological assessments supporting NOAA Fisheries, Northwest Regions (NWR) designation of critical habitat under section 4 of the Endangered Species Act for 12 listed salmon and steelhead evolutionarily significant units (ESU). The NOAA Fisheries NWR grouped the ESUs under review in Washington, Oregon, and Idaho into four geographic domains for the purpose of assessing critical habitat. For each domain the agency convened a critical habitat analytical review team (CHART) charged with analyzing the best available data for each ESU to make findings regarding the presence of essential habitat features in each watershed, potential management actions that may affect those features, and the conservation value of each watershed within each ESUs range. This report summarizes the agencys mapping efforts, methods and information used, and final CHART assessments for these 12 ESUs.