Where the Governor's office leadership is needed is working with the co-managers to develop and IMPLEMENT a meaningful habitat recovery plan for Puget Sound rivers and reductions in northern fisheries impacts on ESA listed stocks. I realize that is a very heavy lift and not politically popular but it should be abundantly clear to all by now that even with limited Southern United State fishing the resource continues to decline.

As the co-manager Puget Sound Chinook harvest plans were developed many realized the fishing reductions were merely stop-gap efforts that bought time for society to decide to get serious about habitat recovery. For most
Chinook stocks it is clear that 20 or so years post ESA listing of Puget Sound Chinook both the abundance and productivity of those listed fish continues to decline. The Stillaguamish Chinook are a prime example of those declines; on the average over the last 20 years the fish that reach the spawning grounds are not replacing themselves.

Curt