I think the takeaways from this are:

Likely advancement of the "Orca protection/no boat zone" around the West coast of San Juan island, which will eliminate one of our states best late summer Chinook fishing opportunities and would also greatly impede transportation throughout the islands. As said it will remain to be seen what the stance of the commission and department will be, however, given what we've been seeing the past decade, I assume wholeheartedly they will fold like a house of cards.

A subsidization of whale watching boats to appease them for less opportunity to chase the whales. (In the article it states they should be trained as oil spill response... my guess would be as just-compensation for asking them to stay further away from the whales). Keeping in mind many rarely follow the distance restrictions currently in play.

An increase in taxes to foot the bill for research and implimentation (Inslee might as well change his name to Gimme at this point) which is the last damn thing we need in this state currently.

Given the current state of affairs with the degradation of stocks in general, the political environment of NOF, and the complete lack of leadership competency we have been seeing from the Department in general, I would think it would be pretty clear to all that this is going to mean nothing at all good for the recreational fisherman.... and quite frankly it's probably not going to mean a damn bit of good for the whales themselves.