Freespool,

Some of the BRT reports include over harvest as contributing to the current ESU or DPS status, but none ever single it out as the limiting factor. Again, those reports covery multiple watersheds, so lack of specificity would be expected. It would be easy to pick apart any of the status reports and indicate specific river populations that are depressed more by over harvest than by habitat, but that's not the purpose of those reports.

Todd,

You're right. There are allowable impacts to ESA populations, and as long as proposed actions don't appreciably increase the risk of extinction, those actions are approved, usually with some conditions. With so much hatchery fish harvest at stake, and low habitat productivity to be demonstrated, I foresee a lot of "maintenance" populations, particularly in LCR tributaries. I suppose that will also apply to PS Green, Puyallup, and Skok chinook. Ah hell, and all PS steelhead.

Rivrguy,

But in pristine habitat conditions, an escapement of today's escapement goal would produce a heckuva' lot more fish than it does now! That is precisely how Alaska rivers can get such good escapements while still supporting significant harvests. Good habitat!

Freespool,

When it comes to LCR wild steelhead, I don't think anyone's make an effective argument that anything other than habitat is limiting. L Louie says it's over harvest, but he's said that generically, across all species, stocks, river systems, hell, even Kamchatka, Russia. But he hasn't proven the point for many, if any, specific cases.

Sg