GRANTS PASS - The Bush administration sees a larger role for hatcheries in restoring Pacific salmon in danger of extinction, but counting hatchery fish along with wild will not immediately take any runs off the endangered species list.

A review of the 26 Pacific salmon runs protected by the Endangered Species Act, prompted by a 2001 federal court ruling that gave hatchery fish the same protection as wild fish, found that all should stay on the list. That includes the Oregon coastal coho, whose threatened species status was rescinded by the federal court order that prompted the review.

NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency in charge of restoring salmon, said one other run - lower Columbia River coho - should be added to the list for a total of 27. The listing proposals will be reviewed over the next year before NOAA makes a final determination.

The review and details of a new federal policy on salmon hatcheries prompted by the same 2001 ruling were to be formally announced today in Seattle by Commerce Undersecretary Adm. Conrad C. Lautenbacher Jr., and NOAA Fisheries Northwest Regional Director Bob Lohn.

"Hatchery fish will not be considered a substitute for existing naturally spawning runs," Lohn said in a telephone interview from Seattle. "For those who were thinking that putting fish in concrete would provide an easy way out, this plainly says that won't be acceptable."

Though 27 of the 51 distinct populations of salmon and steelhead on the West Coast still merit protection, the vast majority are improving as a result of improved ocean conditions and habitat restoration, Lohn added.

"The overall goal is the restoration of naturally spawning salmon runs," Lautenbacher said. "We are turning the corner on this. If you look at the indications, people should not lose hope on it."

Though hatchery fish make up about 80 percent of Pacific salmon populations, fisheries biologists have long warned that hatcheries are one of the leading factors in the overall decline over the past century, and many are not convinced by the new policy.

Poor practices in the past have depleted the gene pool, and crowded conditions lead to the rapid spread of disease. The young hatchery fish released into rivers compete with wild fish for food, but are less successful at surviving predators and other hazards to return as adults.

Russell Lande, professor of biology at the University of California at San Diego, said there was a small role for hatcheries to sustain runs that were so close to extinction they could not otherwise survive. But few hatcheries are not harming salmon runs, and there is no evidence they can restore self-sustaining runs over the long term.

The hatchery policy lays out five major points:

- The genetic resources for restoring salmon populations can be found in both hatchery and wild fish.

- Hatchery fish that are "no more than moderately divergent" genetically from wild fish will be included in the same group known as an Evolutionarily Significant Unit, or ESU.

- Decisions on whether to protect a specific ESU will be based on the entire population, while recognizing the need to conserve natural populations and their habitat.

- ESA protection will be evaluated on four factors: abundance, productivity, geographic distribution and genetic diversity.

- Hatcheries can play an important role in fulfilling salmon harvest obligations to Indian tribes.

The status review and new hatchery policy were greeted with enthusiasm by Indian tribes using hatcheries to rebuild runs that once were the core of their economy and culture.

"Let's get to work today," said Charles Hudson of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission in Portland.

Environmentalists who have been battling NOAA Fisheries over salmon restoration for more than a decade said they were cautiously optimistic.

"I'm pleased they are on the list and still protected by ESA," said Jeff Curtis of Trout Unlimited. "I think we've got a complicated process that is fraught with peril here. It's not going to be easy."

Property rights advocates who brought the lawsuit that prompted the review and hatchery policy expressed anger and disdain.

"I think the Bush administration is pandering to environmentalists that would not vote for him no matter what he did," said Russell Brooks, the Pacific Legal Foundation lawyer who won a federal court ruling rescinding threatened species status for Oregon Coastal coho.

"I absolutely cannot wait to drag (Bush) appointee Bob Lohn back before a federal court judge and have him attempt to justify a listing for over 200,000 fish in the Oregon coastal coho population."

Lautenbacher emphasized that the review and the hatchery policy were based on science, the mandates of the Endangered Species Act, and the federal court ruling, not politics.

"I don't have a list of Republican clients that we are serving," he said.