The "Habitat is the only problem" mantra is that if we improve the freshwater productivity we don't need to change fishing. If the current R/S is (say) 1.1 and the habitat fix takes it to 1.2 you can double your catch for the same escapement.

Right now, as bad as the habitat is supposed to be, most of the salmon runs are having R/S's greater than 1. We just catch them, excess seals eat them, etc.

We are conducting a different sort of experiment with salmon as opposed to other ESA species. We are trying to harvest our way to recovery. It is more complex than that, but politically there is no will to shut down all the impacting fisheries.