Originally Posted By: Rivrguy
Quote:

Was it the QIN guy realizing he forgot to carry a zero somewhere? Biological negotiation? Completely unfounded, and both sides just wanted to keep license sales/fish production going strong? Were horses traded?


The simplest way to explain it is that the QIN model is weighted toward the PDO / ocean conditions and the state is weighted toward the fresh water survival. Both consider both but the emphasis on two different portions of the fishes life cycle will and does give you two different results that have to be reconciled.


I suspected as much. Maybe they ought to compare predicted vs. actual over time for each side, make a decision about whose prediction model has been more accurate, and use it. That sounds to me like the sort of co-management we need; not competing plans, but learning-based plans that incorporate the agreed-upon, best available science, as determined by model performance data.
Under the current paradigm, since both estimates are only educated guesses at best, wouldn't reconciliation leave us with a co-crafted, WAG?

The PDO driver for the QIN does explain their initial pessimism, considering the overall trend in PDO in recent years. On that note, it looks like El Nino is dominating the weather pattern predictions for the year so far. Let's hope that changes by the summer (which I'm reading does sometimes happen). Seems like El Nino equals low PDO, generally speaking.