Another concern I have about the pinniped predation on salmon is temporal and spatial. Temporally, they (Harbor seals, I think) take a lot of smolts. Removing them saves smolts, for 3,4,5 years down the road; assuming that marine survival and our extremely conservative marine managers allow the additional smolts to survive to return.

Most of the predation by adult pinnipeds that at least makes the news is after the fish have passed the SRKW. Such as Ballard Locks and the Columbia. So, killing these pinnipeds benefits the SRKW if the surviving adults are allowed to spawn and all that additional production is allowed to return to the SRKW. This action has an additional year of waiting for benefits above letting the smolts go.

This is faster than habitat fixes but still lets the SRKW continue to auger in.