Sg:

Thanks for putting the focus on the Stillaguamish (where it belongs when discussing most Puget Sound fisheries), but it leads me to a question I've asked many times, and to which I've never received what I understood to be an answer:

I accept that the Stilly's escapement goal is driven by its severely compromised habitat. That said, if habitat is the driver of ALL escapement goals, how come the habitats in the Queets, Quinault, Hoh, and Sol Duc (not pristine, but excellent by modern standards) aren't assigned much higher escapement goals than the rivers thought to be all but destroyed (Stilly)?

My guess is that, because achieving higher escapements, whether for one river or 100, would require meaningful, across the board limits on mixed stock ocean fisheries, that's simply not considered a real option. The largely unsubstantiated, over-generalized argument that the habitat won't provide a return on any investment in escapement does much to keep that status quo intact, methinks.