By MARK FREEMAN

Rogue Valley residents expressed frustration Wednesday over whether the federal government is jumping the gun or waiting too long to protect the region's wild chinook salmon under the Endangered Species Act.

Speaking at a public hearing Wednesday night, Chris Bratt told the National Marine Fisheries Service that local and state efforts to improve chinook runs and their habitat deserve more time to work before declaring the fish a threatened species.

"I think the people in the community are willing to do it," said Bratt, an environmentalist on the Applegate Partnership board. "Give us some time to see how we're doing on a voluntary basis."

But John Roach of Grants Pass told NMFS officials that state restoration plans read well, but fail to get on-the-ground help for fish because of politics.

"Political reality is, it doesn't work," said Roach, a member of a defunct watershed council in Josephine County. "We don't need consensus. The fish can't wait any longer for the consensus process. We have to do what we can to protect them."

Bratt and Roach were two of about 60 people who attended the NMFS hearing at the Jackson County Courthouse Auditorium in Medford.

It was one of 20 public hearings NMFS called to gather comments on the proposed listing of 13 different salmon and steelhead stocks from Puget Sound to central California.

NMFS has proposed that virtually all the wild chinook spawning in streams from Port Orford south to San Francisco Bay be listed as one threatened species. The one exception is upper Klamath Basin chinook, which NMFS considers a separate species not meriting Endangered Species Act protection.

Federal biologists believe the remaining Southern Oregon and Northern California chinook share enough genetic traits and life-history characteristics to be one so-called "Evolutionarily Significant Unit" worth protecting as a species.

The chinook proposal was released in late March. A final decision is due by next spring.

A listing could lead to massive changes in commercial and sport fishing both in rivers and the ocean, new priorities for managing Lost Creek and Applegate dams and habitat protections.

"I'd hate to see it because I'd hate to have to stop fishing," said Dale Smith, a Grants Pass angler. But deep down, I don't believe we're going to do what we need to do without a listing."

Some in the crowd agreed with Charlie Maple, who chided NMFS for proposing to list chinook and regulate the fish's freshwater habitat when the salmon's real enemies are the seals, sea lions and fish-eating birds.

"Control of the predators should come before any new listings," Maple said.

Others like Kimberly Sellers told personal stories about how state laws and agencies failed to protect stream habitat for fish.

Sellers said she lives on an Applegate River tributary where a nearby landowner has logged a riparian area, built a gravel dam and has even dredged the creek without serious state penalties.

Listing the fish would put the heavy hand of the ESA on such activities, she said.

"The state agencies are currently at the mercy of the landowners," Sellers said.

Still others told NMFS officials to stop discriminating against hatchery fish, and use hatcheries to boost fish runs.

"Plant more fish," said Robert Murphy, "and we'll have more fish."

Locally, chinook is the last of the Big Three anadromous fish species -- along with coho and steelhead -- proposed for threatened status. NMFS last year listed wild coho as threatened in Southern Oregon and Northern California.