One other question for Salmo (sorry, I guess I have to argue this morning).

If one or two data points can define a 20 trend of decline, if the next data point or two are way up what does that say about the so called trend?

The only good thing about this discussion of trends is that we will find out which was right as time goes on.

I suspect for some rivers the WSC rightly has identified real trends of decline, but for other rivers they have just caught the population down in a valley and they will cycle upward.

Your rant about population growth, human impacts, and the environment were dead on as far as long term threats to steelhead.

Overfishing is easy to fix. Stop fishing. no problem in a few fish generations

Habitat degradation takes many human generations to fix.

I just think all this WSR talk is a waste of time. If it weren't justified as being mandated by strong evidence, I wouldn't care. OUr time would be better spent trying to prevent human encroachment into steelhead habitat.

As for the science the evidence for statewide delcining populations isn't particularly strong.

Furthermore, the evidence that WSR will help is also weak. It certainly doesn't seem to have helped the puyallup.

I