Moravec =

Your statement - "It wasn't until the late1990s that Wild protection was in place" is off by about a decade and 1/2.

In 1984 escapement goals for wild steelhead for the entire Boldt case area were develop. Not only was that the first major effort over a larger attempted on the west coast it was also the first time where attempts were to measure the escapement of wild fish (where hatchery and wild fish are mixed).

Starting in the winter of 1983/84 (earlier in couple of basins) mark selective fisheries (wild steelhead head release) became a commonly used management tool to manage for increased wild steelhead escapements.

Steeliedrew -
If one is concern about hatchery/wild steelhead interactions and the long term productivity of the wild population on basins like the Skagit or Snohomish wild brood stock programs would be more than a magnitude more impactful than the current Chambers Creek program.

While wild brood stock programs can be successful in producing fish for harvest (or in extreme cases last resort rescue programs) in is virtually impossible to develop a wild brood stock that is well integrated with the wild population. To do so the brood stock needs to representative of the wild population.

I agree with Todd on both WFC and WSC.

curt