"Hmmm ya know in past times people weren't praised for doing what they are required to do "


You think they are REQUIRED to protect our fisheries? Or to protect opportunity for sportfishermen? I personally think it is a responsibility, but I am one person. Fishermen are not everyone. What about the people who would have benefitted from the ruling? To them, the Administration is "required" to make the decisions that benefit them. Don't get me wrong, I think that the delisting, and the whole comparison of hatchery to wild, was a fairly backwards idea. But you have to understand that we have a representative government and our administration is supposed to represent all the people, not just "us", whoever us may be. So, there was pressure to enact policy benefitting a specific group and hurting another, and it was possibly considered and then rejected. Welcome to democratic republic known as the US, that's how things work. Again, IMHO the result was the correct one, morally, scientifically and just plainly simply, but that doesnt mean it was a no brainer. When you are in a position to attempt to represent 300 million people equally, maybe you'd see how much consideration and "backpedalling" it takes to find what is the true consensus, or at least majority. And that's not even considering personal morality factors. The Government gets hammered for standing firm on moral issues because they are "biased" and then hammered by the same people when they DON'T uphold other moral issues because they are "corrupt".

Hmmm, I got way off-track, sorry about that. I just have one more thing I wanna say, and honestly I am not trying to spark more contreversy and name calling .

Think about WSR. Similar situation, but opposite direction. This legislation benefits(or seems to, I am not sure I can see clear evidence either way) people who are predominantly catch and release fishermen, who fish for sport. It hurts fishermen who fish for food, or professionally guid for customers who want to take that trophy nate home for the wall or to brag or whatever. Somebody is going to be unhappy, no matter which way it goes, or they could find some compromise and EVERYONE is unhappy . The point is, just because something doesnt go your way doesnt mean the person(s) responsible is evil and is out to destroy all you hold sacred.

Oh, and to preempt a comment I know I will get, I am NOT saying cancelling WSR would be even in the same ball park as delisting, jsut a comparison to show satisfying opposing sides.