Todd/Bob-
Regarding the lowering steelhead escapement goals.

First a little history may be in order - Washington in the Boldt Case area sat about establishing steelhead escapement goals for those rivers in the early 1980s - long before many other areas had even attempted to do so. In the process the State had to make some assumption on some of those values use to develop those goals. In that process every attempt was made to error on the side of the fish. The result was that in most rivers it was expected that the resulting goals would be above the MSY levels. As those goals were revisited (often because of tribal interest or resource needs) it was found with the new information collected over the interving years that indeed those goals were above the MSY level. Thus with tribal agree some goals were lowered.

Are either of you suggesting that management should not be updated or reviewed as new information because available? Or that changes based on the new information should only be made if it agrees with your or mine personal bias? Somehow that doesn't seem to me to be management based on the best science.

The Skagit example - with the recent declines in marine survival it became apparent that the more protection was needed for the Skagit populations than just the cap on the fishing exploitation rate (16%). Remember that the co-managers had never agreed on an escapement goal before - in part because of the conservatism in the setting of the goals. In reviewing the available science on what the appropriate MSY goal should for the Skagit 3 studies were available that had estimated the MSY goal using Skagit specific information - they ranged from 2,800 to 4,800 fish with a middle value of 4,000 - the 4,000 was developed by a consultant for Washington Trout. Given the skepticism of WT of WDFW management it would not be unreasonable to consider the 4,000 as the best estimate of the Skagit MSY escapement level. The co-manage choose an escapement goal of 6,000 or 150% of the WT developed value.

Todd - you know all this so I don't understand why you bring up the Skagit example. While you both may have a problem with using MSY as an escapement reference point (a differrent kettle of fish than managing for MSY harvest) chastising the co-mangers for not being concern with the wild resource using as evidence their selecting goals considerable higher than that called for in the Wild Salmonid Policy is some what disingenuous.

Clearly most of the escapement goals on the Puget Sound rivers are well above the MSY levels. Review the graph of Puyallup run size and composition. For nearly 2 decades that escapements have been below the goal. In fact since 1990 with virtually no harvest - run size and escapement nearly equal the population has continued to declined. For 3 steelhead generations the each cycle has produced run sizes less than its parent escapement - a classic indication of a population at or above its current carrying capacity. That the escapement goal is higher than the carrying capacity of the system at its current its productive. In fact the Puyallup could be called a poster child of management at carrying capacity. It also illustrates that no harvest or management at carrying capacity doesn't necessarily guarantee a robust population.

Tight lines
S malma