Norm -
Thanks for taking the time to expand on some of these issues. I would like to discuss a couple of these in a little more detail.

There is little doubt that worldwide many of the fisheries have over exploitated the fish stocks. In addition MPAs have one of the tools used to address that issue. Further there is little question that Puget Sound rockfish were over fished. However it is equally clear that overfishing happened 3 decades ago. Since that time and especially in the last decade or so there has been substantial changes in the management of that resource and we both agree that are encouraging signs that those changes are resulting in positive changes in our rockfish populations.

And as you pointed out with the rockfish's complex and extended life histories much more tha just high relief habitat is needed for successful rockfish populations - productive open waters, eel grass and kelp beds, floating debris, tranisition habitat, etc. One should also keep in mind that WDFW can only regulate the fishing those key habitat pieces fall under the control of other agencies. As pointed out there has been sustantial changes in the fishing piece that clearly has had some benefit (we can argue about how much) but it remains the case that nearly as much has been done for the other pieces. Because of the complex nature of those other pieces and the equally complex interactions of those features with a number of other man's activities MPAs may not be enough to provide the protection and restoration needed - just one example would be water quality.

This constant focus on the fishing piece allows those that are impacting those other features to continue to duck taking action - protection of those features will cost be expensive and require changes in society's behave. What is clearly needed is update evaluation of the status of the Puget Sound rockfish populations and a more precise determination of actual production bottlenecks. Without that backgroud work the managers and those hoping to protect the resource will only be guessing on the best course of action maybe and what benefits may result from such action. In short my concern is that not enough attention is being paid to the non-fishing piece.

You mentioned that 5,000 pairs of rockfish is needed assure the protectin of the "species". Of coures Puget Sound rockfish population is much more than a single species; if I recall correctly there are what the State considered to be 28 stocks in the Puget Sound unit. You comment read as if 5,000 pairs were needed for each of those. There has been a lot of discussion in the last 15 years or so in the conservation biology world about what sort of minimum population size is needed to assure future generations of a particular fish "species". After a lot of discussion it seems that minimal population size seems to center around an effective population size of 500 adults. It would actually take more than 500 breeders to assure that 500 adults would be "effecitive". In the case of the rockfish it the effective population size may be nearer the actual population than say salmon. In this case complex age structure and longevity of our rockfish play in their favor. Unlike salmon which have only one shot at successful spawning and relatively little generation overlap the rockfish get a number of opportunities to successfully breed with several generations present in the breeding population and over the course of the multiple breeding seasons there will likely be different mates for each female. In short I would think that while there may need to be 10,000 adult rockfish in the Puget Sound population that figure would be a composite for all the various species with each species needing an effective population size of 500.

It continues to be my concern that this whole rockfish issue has been put on the "fast track" by some to advance agendas that have little to do with the rockfish themselves. Potentially if too much time passes and rockfish are indeed rebounding that lever will be lost to those hoping to use the conservation of rockfish as that lever. As I stated in an earlier post I find advancing a social agendas by miss using conservation to be distasteful.

Tight lines
Curt