L. Louie,

While Kamchatka steelhead are biologically the same as PNW steelhead, the population similarity stops there. Kamchatka is not a good comparison to OR or WA steelhead rivers. The Kamchatka steelhead are endangered due to over-fishing, but it's important to understand the context of that over-fishing. The Kamchatka steelhead populations are not very productive, so they are very sensitive to fishing pressure. A few poachers at the mouth of a river system can cause a lot of damage to the local steelhead population.

Kamchatka steelhead runs exhibit respawner rates up to 75%, while here and in BC we see about 12 - 15% repeat spawning among wild steelhead. The high respawner rate of Kamchatka steelhead means that recruitment of new and younger adult steelhead to the spawning population is low. It's unlikely that young recruits are selected by the harvest over re-spawners, so either the freshwater or marine habitat has low productivity. The marine waters appear to be rich, considering that other salmonid populations are typically large, but we know now that this is not always a dependable clue. More likely it is the harsh sub-arctic climate that limits productivity for an extensive stream rearing obligate like steelhead.

It appears to me that in the natural order of the ecosystem, individual Kamchatka steelhead populations are relatively small, with low recruitment, and thus extremely sensitive to over-fishing. Heck, any fishing might be over-fishing for such populations. I think an important take-home message is that even contemporary degraded OR streams are more productive for steelhead than their Kamchatka counterparts. The measure of productivity in this case being recruits per spawner and smolts per hectare of freshwater habitat.

Sg