Northern intercept fisheries are destroying salmon runs.

www.psc.org/about-us/history-purpose/pacific-salmon-treaty

All commercial fisheries, tribal or not, are destroying salmon runs.

All commercial fisheries is a rather broad swipe at things and the true impacts vary from place to place. Commercial fishers only fish when the harvest managers permit them to do so. We put more effort into restoration of habitat than preservation, fail to recognize the long term reduction in productivity and what should be the reduction in harvest to match the reduced productivity.

Looking at history when the vast majority of harvest was terminal and runs declined on any given stream so did harvest and the runs recovered. The difference now is a lot more people and growth in the recent past of marine mixed stock harvest from AK South. Simple fact is until we start preserving habitat first and address the massive over harvest of intercept mixed stock fisheries nothing much changes. Salmon restoration with the mind set of that currently exist is simply smoke and mirrors to continue what is the current harvest policies. This isn't brain surgery guys.

I think fact of the matter is almost every grocery store on the continent has wild caught salmon for sale. That is where they “go”...

Politics result in the path of least resistance. Forget practicality, cost, and reasonability. If the masses want A, then it usually will be done, even if A doesn't work, if B is more cost efficient, practical and actually does something. A perfect example is how the county requires septics to be pumped and inspected at the time of a sale. Doesn't matter if it was done a year earlier. But, a home that isn't sold can go years without being tested. Why, because no politician has the guts to require it from everyone every 5 years. It is easier to deal with people one at a time. So, new homes are checked, even though the odds are 1000 to one there is a problem, while the lake front double wide mobile with a gravity flow septic that is 50 years old is not checked, ever, unless it is sold.

For the win!

Got to stop by a Chehalis Tributary today for a couple hours. Glad to say, there are still some fish around. Surprisingly bright hatchery fish.

Ah ............. and we fished with a stick and string tied to it. Oh and until the technology of canneries tribal people were the harvesters for towns people. There was a time when Aberdeen was the largest city in the state and it was all about timber and ship building. Fishing was something that tribal folks did.