JEEBUS.... this thread is SO depressing.

It's kind of like a similar thread more than a dozen years ago lamenting the impending doom of wild PS steelhead. Lots of complaining and hand wringing about mismanagement and what to do. Lots of folks coming to the sad realization that it was truly the beginning of the end. By 2007, they were ESA-listed. With the singular exception of Skagit... and even that is debatable... over a decade later, they're still really no better off.

With chinook, the death spiral was very similar... only the timeline was just a bit more protracted. PS chinook were ESA-listed in March of 1999.... and here we are in March 2018 nearly two decades later, and the fish are still no better off than when first listed.

Chinook are under siege at every life stage from egg to spawning adult. Their spawning and freshwater rearing habitat either degraded, rendered inaccessible, or claimed by urban sprawl. The toxic soup of drugs and chemicals we pour into Puget Sound. Our relentless pursuit of meat for the box exploiting every age class in the big blue pond. And as this thread has so aptly highlighted, the disproportionate exploitation of the old/large phenotype in the ocean feeding grounds. All of these factors have taken their toll. We're unsustainably burning the critter's candle at both ends. It's a wonder that any wild PS chinook still exist!

ESA has been impotent in saving these fish because humankind is incapable of self-restraint. The very existence of our rapidly growing society and our modern lifestyle is incompatible with conserving water quality and habitat in Puget Sound. Despite all the habitat groups working with state and federal habitat agencies, there really is no effective/coordinated effort to save the salmon's home. And unfortunately those charged with actually managing the fish are far more pre-occupied with conserving the FISHERY rather than conserving the FISH itself.

Can we really save the fish from ourselves?

Sadly, the fish don't stand a chance against Pugetropolis.