Huge early mortality compared to what? That is the question. We know that lots of steelhead smolts die. We don't know what the "old" situation was because we didn't measure it.

The creek I worked on, where we trapped and marked all smolts and adults, looked like it could produce 1500 steelhead smolts. The stream looked like about 100 spawners filled the rearing capacity. 100/1500= 6.67% smolt to adult survival to first return. Or, put another way, 93.3% post-smolting mortality.

We also observed that less than half the adults coming back had been marked as smolts. While some could have been from below the trap, a lot had to be strays. Then, add in repeat spawners. In many places in the steelhead's range you get 20-30-50-even 90% repeats. All the repeats lower the smolt to first spawn survival below the 6.67% from above.

So, based on what I have seen in steelhead coastwide, the loss of more than half the smolts before they hit Bonilla-Tatoosh; even the loss of 2/3 or more, does tell me that there is a big problem in the Sound.

Maybe there is, but in other parts of the range they seem to cope well with what have to be low marine survivals.