Moravec-
I'm afraid it is going to the limited Puget Sound Chinook opportunity is going to be tough for much longer than just this year.

I join you in hoping that recovery projects begin paying dividends and we see a up swing in PS Chinook productivity. There has been some major efforts to improve estuaries on a number of the region's rivers. Without a doubt those historic estuaries played a major role in supporting PS Chinook abundances. If the goal is to recapture substantial portion of historic PS wild Chinook abundances improving those estuaries will be important.

While many may disagree my opinion is that the current population production bottlenecks in key river systems is not the estuaries. Sticking with the Stillaguamish example estimates place the current estuary at between 30 and 40% of the historic condition. Yet as stated earlier the 1990 to 2009 data indicates that the carrying capacity was less than 1,000 wild Chinook. It has been estimated that the historic Stillaguamish Chinook abundance was 40,000 fish; that 1990 to 2009 capacity is only 2.5% of that historic abundance. The available information shows that on the average the survival of Chinook eggs in the gravels of the Stillaguamish is some of the lowest seen in Puget Sound. I argue that the capacity of the Stillaguamish estuary to produce Chinook is not being challenged rather the production bottleneck is the quality of the freshwater habitat upstream of those estuaries.

If the above does not convince you that on the Stillaguamish the issue is freshwater habitat consider the plight of the Stillaguamish steelhead; another ESA listed species. Steelhead with their large smolt size have almost zero dependence on estuary habitat yet using the information provide in the recent draft PS steelhead recovery plan the recent wild winter escapements represent approximate 3% if the historic steelhead abundance.

Curt