Thanks for the update.

Assuming Willapa must have a primary wild chinook stock, why not select Naselle? At the southern end of the bay, it is geographically most isolated. Stop producing any hatchery chinook at Naselle, and straying from either Nemah or Willapa/Forks Ck would likely fall below the HSRG standard.

I think it will be impossible to have significant hatchery chinook production from Forks Ck AND maintain a wild population in the Willapa River that is not heavily influenced by hatchery straying. Chinook prefer river spawning over creek spawning, and even those genetically inferior Forks Ck chinook are going to select the mainstem Willapa River as their preferred spawning location over tiny Forks Ck. Why try to do the impossible?

This notion that WDFW can have its cake and eat it too (meaning achieve wild chinook conservation goals and have maximum production and resultant slaughter of returning hatchery chinook in sport and gillnet fisheries is dysfuctional, not to mention it wastes agency and public time and resources.

Watching this AHA process feels like watching a math modeler trying to make 2 + 2 = 5.

Sg