This is a thinker thread to be sure so I would like to throw this in. The world of unintended consequences or how we altered things with out knowing. The best example I know of is Willapa Chum ( hang on a minute / breath ) which met it head on. For years a friend of mine could watch the interaction between predators ( birds in this case ) and out migrants. Then the hatchery production was restricted which good / bad depends on ones view but the out come was bad. Why? Well now all you had was the natural production out migrating and all the birds and others still there feasting on just the much lower natural production so bad is all one can say to the end effect.

The natural order has been altered beyond repair to reach a goal of recreating the natural order and in many ways somewhat like a house of cards that if you start changing things around in the world of fish it tends to have a cascade effect, downward. The inability to make adjustments to the big picture is driven by harvest and MSY which restrict the ability to recognize and react to a situation as it develops because out the gate MSY is about maintaining harvest at all cost. Then this if you harvest the food chain top to bottom just what does one think is going to happen? More fish at the top & bottom of the food chain? Nope all go down which is happening on steroids in PS.

Bottom line is be it Steelhead or any fish really everything is co - dependent so the attempts to save this stock or that stock will have some success in the short run but usually fail long term big picture because you cannot harvest the food chain top to bottom. You cannot build like crazy even with good practices because in the end the accumulative damage that is many times unseen will lead you to the world of unintended consequences.

Note to self: Put soap box away.