Take-Down,

Although Commerce has the legislative mandate to promote and facilitate commerce, NMFS - the National Marine Fisheries Service - under NOAA and Commerce is tasked with the mission of "the conservation of living marine resources." Looking at the track record of over-fished stocks and near-term goals like "reducing over-fishing" as opposed to flat out putting a stop to over-fishing, many would argue that NMFS does lean more toward the commerce of fish than the conservation of fishery resources.

Chasin' Baitman,

Federal agencies like NMFS are required under the Federal Trust Responsibility and a couple Executive Orders (at least one from the Clinton administration) to be attentive to tribes' legal rights as a matter of law. It falls in line with the federal court decisions that define treaty tribes as having fishing "rights" while you and I have a "privilege" to fish.

The NOAA General Counsel attorneys make clear in no uncertain terms that "throwing in the towel" for any ESA-listed species is off the table. This creates some impossible situations like the Stilly, where the data tell us that the Chinook simply cannot recover until the habitat recovers to the point that fish survival can dramatically improve. The flip side is the slippery slope, where if NMFS could throw in the towel on the Stilly, groups whose economic interests rely on degrading fish habitat would lobby to throw in the towel on the next weakest stock, and then the next weakest, etc., until all are gone and functionally extinct.

Sg