Because if you look at the natural swings sometimes they go faster. Puyallup and Green pinks went from tens of thousands, at most, to millions in maybe a decade. Canada laying off chum for four years took some runs from, again, 10-20K to 100-200K.

They have shown that it CAN happen. Certainly, until the dams come out we can't restore populations from above them but in the dam-free systems we can accomplish a lot by killing a lot less. The fish themselves will improve gravel quality and egg-fry survival by the simple act of spawning.

We can't lose sight, though, that to get back our salmon we need to fix the ocean issues from the base of the food web up to the apex predators. Keeping in our comfortable silos is a one-way ticket to failure.