GRANTS PASS - Crediting strong efforts by the state of Oregon to limit fishing, reform hatchery production and improve freshwater habitat, NOAA Fisheries said Tuesday it is shelving its proposal to return Oregon coastal coho to the threatened species list.

“I applaud the hard work of local agriculture, forestry, state, tribal and other federal partners to develop a solid plan for recovery,” Bob Lohn, the NOAA Fisheries Northwest regional administrator, said in a statement. “This is an encouraging example of the diverse interests that can come together to improve conditions for salmon in the Pacific Northwest.”

With no federal protection, there will be fewer regulations on logging, agriculture, land development and restoration work from Astoria to Port Orford.

The state of Oregon will have a draft plan ready this summer detailing how it will continue rebuilding Oregon coastal coho populations, said Ed Bowles, fisheries chief for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Nothing on the ground is going to change because of this from the fish's perspective,” Bowles said. “We will still continue doing the good stewardship activities. We will continue to fix things that are broken within the watersheds.”

Salmon advocates said the decision was premature, with many scientists, including some within NOAA Fisheries, feeling recent improvements in Oregon coastal coho numbers are largely due to weather patterns producing more food in the ocean - a condition subject to periodic change.

“We need a few more years under our belt before we know what the population trends really are,” said Jeff Curtis of Trout Unlimited. “I think they're trying to get at least one species not on the endangered species list. I think they picked Oregon coastal coho.”

Oregon coastal coho spawn in small rivers running out of the Coast Range into the Pacific from the mouth of the Columbia south to the Sixes River near Port Orford. Historically, annual returns numbered more than 1 million fish, but that dropped to a low of about 25,000 in 1997. Returns now are running around 100,000, Bowles said.

They were the bread and butter of the Oregon salmon fleet until 1994, when federal authorities shut off ocean fishing due to plummeting numbers. They were listed as a threatened species in 1998, primarily due to overfishing, loss of habitat to logging, agriculture and urban development, and misguided hatchery practices.

The 1998 threatened species listing was overturned in 2001, when a federal judge ruled that NOAA Fisheries had erred in lumping hatchery and wild fish in the same population group, but only granting threatened species protections to wild fish. That ruling was put on hold, but finally upheld in 2003.