Those who know me know I'm in the not enough rotting salmon crowd. I think those marine-derived nutrients are (or were) a critical piece of the puzzle, for both anadromous and resident populations.

As a person who does a lot of fly fishing, I have come to understand that our (mostly) glacial streams have much lower aquatic insect populations than, say, Rocky Mountain streams, and as a result, resident (and burgeoning anadromous) fish have relatively little insect forage. That means growing fish depend on "other" food sources, most notably the fry and fingerlings of other (or the same!) species, supplemented by the rotting carcasses of their parent generations. Deprive a system of those critical nutrients, and it translates to less food for burgeoning populations. The result can only be increased predation on smaller fish, which in turn reduces the fry and smolt populations of all species. Not hard to imagine how that would be a recipe for decline over time.

The solution (increase escapement goals) is maddeningly simple, yet at the same time, it is prohibitively complex. Bad situation, both for fish and the anglers who seek them.