There are at least two kind sod scientists working on salmonid recovery. There are the managers, who by and large believe in MSY and that fish populations/species are independent of each other. That is, for example, management of coho has nothing to do with steelhead.

The second group is the ecologists, who see the world as interconnected and disruptions of one part of the ecosystem show up elsewhere.

The management agencies are dominated by the MSY group; ergo fishing is not a problem.

Speaking about steelhead, we have seen up in BC that when you increase a stream's productivity (they use fertilizer and, later, wild pink salmon) that the steelhead responded. Even in poor marine survival years, the increased productivity produced more smolts which gave more adults back. I have been told that the same thing is being seen in the Puyallup watershed as pink escapements climb.

Switching to coho, there are some ongoing studies in Alaska that looked at the relationship between catch of coho from a stream and number of pinlks spawning there. At zero pinks, the catch was about 1,000. At about 2 kilograms of pinks per square meter of stream the catch was about 6,000. What this says to me is that a stream has a productive capacity that is directly tied to amount of salmon that spawn there. If we want to manage for few spawners (MSY) we get some catch. If we want to manage for the ecosystem, we may get more catch.

So, the fact that SW WA or teh coast have not rebounded under little of no steelhead kill doesn't say that harvest is not the problem. It may say that steelhead harvest is not controlling. Even then, I wounder about what the actual kill is.

Data that I have seen from the coast suggests that there used to be pinks, chum, and lots more chinook and coho spawning there. IF increasing productivity of the streams will increase steelhead then overfishing remains a big problem.