Robert,

We seem to agree that wild fish populations are most resilient in coping with environmental change, be it freshwater or ocean productivity cycles. As for WDFW making "uneducated guesses" about carrying capacity, I've met several of the folks who do this, and I've found them to generally be pretty well educated, and their guesses are based on the best data available and assumptions one can make about fish population dynamics. Carrying capacity is determined by nature, and it is greatly influenced by human actions. So it is important to understand it in the relative sense. Fish population carrying capacity these days is considerably less than it was 200 or even 50 years ago. Some groups are advocating restoring wild fish populations to "historic" run sizes. That just isn't going to happen unless we re-locate about 5 million WA state residents.

There is lots of interest in habitat restoration. This is good, but consider that there are limits to that alternative unless we re-locate the 5 million etc.

As for carrying capacity and potential run sizes like 30K steelhead on the Skagit; well the Skagit may have produced wild run sizes like that at one time, or in some highly productive years, but it won't happen again even if WDFW and the tribes ended all target kill fisheries on steelhead and made the escapement goal roughly equal to the run size each year. The limiting factors for the steelhead run seem to be: egg to fry survival, very early juvenile rearing, and ocean survival. In river harvest by treaty and recreational fishing reduces escapement and productivity in some years, but harvest has much less effect on production than the 3 factors I mentioned.

Skagit pink and chum salmon are almost as productive as they can be under present environmental conditions. Escapements tend to be good to excellent, except for odd year chums. Management chooses to believe that since there is a pink/chum interaction that they need not manage for larger odd year chum runs, but data indicate that large odd year chum escapements more often than not produce subsequent large odd year chum returns. So there is an interaction, but it is partly an artifact of management decisions and partly an ecological one. Pink runs can easily surpass a million fish, but not every cycle. The reason is flooding in freshwater and variation in ocean survival. Puget Sound is bacically the southern extent of the natural range of pink salmon. No species is as productive at the limit of its range as it is at the center. Alaskan pinks are and always will be (until global climate change) more productive than Skagit pinks.

Skagit chum can produce run sizes from 80 to 200K, but not millions, for roughly the same reasons as for pinks. And odd year chum runs will be less than even year runs, due to the pink/chum interaction, but it would be less of a difference if it was not deliberately managed for.

Skagit chinook are truly a puzzle. There is now no targeted fishery of consequence for them anywhere in their range. Yet they remain depressed altho the past couple years have shown improvement. Egg to fry survival has been lower than I would expect. However, most Skagit chinook spawn in the very best habitat available, high flood protection below the Skagit dams, and least sediment input due to watershed being in the national park and wilderness areas. Current research may unravel this puzzle. I hope so, as it is the key to recovery of this chinook population.

The upshot here is that, just because certain Alaskan rivers are teaming with fish, don't assume the same results are possible here without replicating every one of the environmental conditions here as well. And in many instances that simply is not possible.

Beware of absolutes. And remember, assumption is the mother of all f#ckups.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.