I'll differ with Todd somewhat and hope that it's due to a timing frame of reference and not really a difference in analysis.

In the 1980s I did an assessment of Skagit steelhead over the long term as it was known at the time. I looked at records dating to the 20s and 30s, which were mainly commercial harvests because there was so little recreational catch at that time. While my estimations are Skagit specific, I think they're generally applicable to most of Puget Sound. I estimated peak steelhead abundance and harvest as occuring between 1968 and 1972. This was, of course, combined hatchery and wild steelhead abundance. I think the former Game Dept. made a mistake and attributed a lot of steelhead harvests to hatchery production that were more likely from the wild steelhead population.

The Skagit hatchery and wild steelhead populations collapsed by 1975. The Sauk closed at the end of February in 1977, followed by closure of the Skagit a couple years later. The result is that wild steelhead rebounded very significantly in two reproductive cycles - eight years. OK, that was a population response to harvest reduction, irrespective of habitat. The 80s also coincided with a period of good marine survival.

With continued low harvests of wild steelhead in the 90s, the populations fell again. With additional harvest restrictions, the populations remain depressed and have not shown the kind of rebound that occurred in the 80s. That has to be habitat, either freshwater or marine, or a combination of both.

With freshwater harvests not being statistically different from zero, wild steelhead recovery options are limited to treatments of the other "Hs". Hydro, hatcheries, and habitat.

Hydro is pretty limited in Puget Sound, but we'll be taking a new look at it to see if residual continuing impacts are significant and if they can be meaningfully reduced.

Hatchery steelhead are stocked in most PS river systems, and there's a lot to look at, altho I don't expect it to be popular since our remaining steelhead fishing is mostly dependent on these fish. Some analyses suggest that high hatchery smolt stocking rates are correlated with reduced wild run sizes. This is hotly debated among some, with personal professional judgements tending to fall along ideological lines.

Habitat - well, it is what it is. It's what we have left. There's lots of room for improvement, but we can't even agree on the most sensible policies such as saving the best of what is left. We require ourselves to spread habitat investments around all political districts, regardless of recovery potential or the intrinsic value of the habitat remaining therein. I sincerely hope we'll get some habitat money to investigate what appears to be the early marine limit on PS steelhead. At this point we don't even know if it's something we could "fix" or at least improve, or if it's something that we just have to accept as one of those things we can do nothing about.

One thing's for sure, if NOAA-F approves a PS steelhead recovery plan along the lines of the PS chinook recovery plan, all I can say is, enjoy what's left while it lasts. Instead of top down rule, the PS chinook plan is grassroots, which is politically popular, but history demonstrates has the least likely chance of succeeding. The PS Shared Strategy has defined RERs (rebuilding exploitation rates) in the north sound where the best habitat and existing wild chinook runs are that are low enough that runs will actually recover if habitat doesn't get much worse and pre-WA interceptions don't increase. However, the Green, Puyallup, Nisqually, and Skokomish (homes to major hatchery production) don't even pretend to recover wild chinook as the ESA would direct. The RERs are so high that even a pristine wild chinook population would be driven over the brink. Only hatchery populations can survive the projected harvest rates. And NOAA-F approved this plan.

I think I've digressed too much here. The take home message is that steelhead will rebound from over-harvest pretty readily, with potential exceptions where populations may have been so badly over-harvested that they're below the threshold of recovery in time frames we know how to analyize (think Hood Canal here). And then there's the Nisqually, where we just flat don't know.

Time for a drink.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.