So, Stillaguamish Chinook. Imagine that. Again we have a PS Chinook management plan that pretends restricting recreational fishing in PS and in the Stillaguamish River will help save and recover Stilly Chinook. Even though the very best scientific evidence indicates that it won't. Stilly Chinook can't replace themselves even if all fishing everywhere is closed. Stilly Chinook are compromised by their natural habitat. Every informed fisheries person knows this by now. So the state and tribal experts, in their collective myopic wisdom have again selected a plan alternative that won't do a damn thing to improve the future condition of Stilly Chinook.

Just like that silly video WDFW and the Stilly Tribe and others released a few short months ago. Through cooperation and working together we can "make the pie bigger" and recover PS Chinook, including Stilly Chinook. Seriously friends, who among us is so blind they can't see how ludicrous this is? In my short history and experience in the fish business, politicians, state, federal, and tribal managers have been promoting this "make the pie bigger" concept, so that there will be fish for everyone through enhancement and recovery efforts since the mid-1970s. And even so, the pie has shrunk another 80% or more, depending on stock and location. Can anyone really be this blind?

The pie is small. And it ain't going to get bigger. At least not significantly bigger. Therefore, fighting over the last salmon is the natural and logical outcome. But I digress.

If saving Stilly Chinook is important - and I'm not ready to throw in the towel - then why in hell are state and tribal managers not adopting measures that actually will preserve the endangered population? And quit pretending that restricting PS recreational fisheries, and particularly, closing FW gamefishing seasons on the Stilly, has any measurable effect on the outcome. If WDFW and the Stilly Tribe really want to save Stilly Chinook, it is past the time to have begun a captive broodstock program for these fish. Why? Because that is the alternative that circumvents the two factors limiting survival of the population. We know that degradation of the Stilly FW habitat precludes natural production of enough fry and smolt to replace the brood population. And horribly low marine survival rates that are completely beyond anyone's ability to control (except Canadian fishing mortality) mean even the hatchery Stilly Chinook cannot return at a rate high enough to do more than maintain the population on the edge of extinction.

Do the captive broodstock program already! And then, and only then, if that cannot succeed then the prudent alternative would be to write them off. But not before giving it our best effort.

Now I'm going to join the conspiracy theorists for a moment. What if the goal, or desired endpoint, is not saving Stilly or PS Chinook. What if the goal is to continue the slide toward functional extinction - not complete extinction because that is harder to do - of PS Chinook? You know, and use Chinook recovery as a smokescreen while the real intention incrementally moves steadily toward the real endpoint? If so, then it is not an unreasonable conclusion that WDFW and the PS Tribes are diligently working steadily toward that goal. The billions of $$ in recovery spending notwithstanding. OK, that's enough time on that soapbox.