Good catch Darth. In the first instance I was just thinking of a solution to the immediate issue of pretend conservation for recovery of Tules. If NMFS demands ESA recovery actions for Tules when thoughtful ecologists understand the futility, then it would make sense to simply stop raising the hatchery variety to empirically demonstrate that futility. If the impossibility of recovering natural production Tules were acknowledged, and the parties agree that hatchery Tules provide both harvest and ecological value, then yes, go ahead and rear and release them provided they are not used as an ESA constraining population. Is this good enough?

C'man, I believe effective mitigation is an ethically (and legally) bound duty. And it is with non-federal, FERC licensed dams. But astoundingly - to me - it's optional with federally owned dams, like the Corps and BoR dams on the Columbia and Snake Rivers. So yes, project owners and fish managers can figure it out, with the understanding that in-kind mitigation is sometimes impossible.