I agree Todd. When fishing for them years ago I remember how often people would start yelling for someone to put fish back because it had to be a different species. They had never seen a chum that looked like the Nisqually fish. That's the reason it suck's so much to loose it. In terms of water shed, the Nisqually is actually fairly good. I believe the dams are at the site of a historically impassible water fall, so no habitat was lost. Hard to say how the scouring/flood differences are postitive versus negative, though there likely is quite a bit of effect. The lower river habitat has been greatly improved in the past few years. Much better than it was previously. I took a quick look at some of the in stream water flow for muck creek, a spawning tributary, and it appears that water flows were much lower at times in the past. So what caused the sudden collapse. It shouldn't be river or estuary issues, and if Kennedy creek, Perry Creek and Johns creek are considered, then the south sound conditions should not be the main cause. Which leaves us to the intrusion of pinks, which should be a only odd year effect. Since the crisis is both years, we can limit that some. So, what's left. Mainly harvest. I can not attest to the oceanic harvest, but the returns to other hoodsport, the skoke and minter should also be collapsing. Are they. Looking at just a few years data, I can see that the sports catch in the Nisqually went from over 2000 in the Nisqually and 500 in Kenney creek (1995) to 368 in the Nisqually in 2014 and 383 in Kennedy creek.
Since the Nisqually river fish face mainly an in river harvest, I think we can start narrowing in on the problem. Either an in river habitat problem up stream that is fairly new and mostly unknown, or a continuing over harvest.
Anyone have a better answer?