Historically ALL salmon harvest was terminal. Native Americans (and Canada First Nations) caught all their fish in the river. Fish returned to those rivers in proportion to how well they were cared for.... it was all ties to a respect for the resource. Trash the river and/or overharvest the fish, and the offenders would suffer the consequences.

Along comes the white man, and the new world view that the fish are just free-swimming wealth waiting to be taken, a dollar bill with fins, reduced to a convenient commodity that could be stuffed in a can and traded globally.

In the race to take MORE MORE MORE, industrial scale harvest methods were employed. And along with it, a mentality to "low hole" the competition. The fleet simply laid claim to fishing grounds further and downstream.

First it was the lower mainstems of the major salmon-producing arteries. Then the estuaries. Then the nearshore coastal marine waters. Then the open ocean, as far as fleets were willing to travel to "one up" the other guy.

And now we've got the mess we have today.... salmon being exploited at every stage of their sub-adult to adult life history, throughout their entire range. The harvest machine is burning the salmon's candle at both ends with no relief in sight.

And with dire consequences, esp for older age-classes of chinook. A new set of very un-natural selection pressures have been created in the killing fields. The year-round mixed stock fishery selects AGAINST larger, older age classes foraging in the ocean pasture. Any fish genetically programmed to stay 3, 4, 5, or even 6 years in the salt clearly has the odds stacked WAY against them. WAY! The older the fish, the longer the odds it can survive out there long enough to reach sexual maturity. The fishery essentially creates a genetic dead end for those fish programmed to return later in life.