People are a train wreck and last I checked people run the WDFW.

CM-
For a true accounting of the "consumers" remember that most of also taxpayers and as such contribute to the the general fund portion of WDFW's budget.

The "consumers" on an individual bases contribute as much as the non-consumers via the general funds and additionally contribute by paying those license fees.

curt

Then the agency should be entirely supported by GF with no licenses. The license fees should get you something in addition to what everybody else gets.

I believe that a well-run agency can preserve and restore habitat based on license fees, but that action needs to show demonstrable benefit.

I think much of the anger and the current situation, beyond providing fish for lots of non-payers, is that the resources continue to decline as well as opportunity and access. You have often noted that there is no biologically justified reason for many of the closures (such as Stilly CT) and yet they occur because WDFW does not support the folks who pay the freight. But, that's just how I see it from where I sit and what I chase. So, more often than not my money gets spent elsewhere.

C'man, your second paragraph above puzzles me. I think the agency can manage hunters and fishers on license fees alone, but not "preserve and restore habitat." Remember, WDFW has very little jurisdictional authority when it comes to habitat management, typically limited to commenting and advising and extremely limited veto authority. So money is not the issue in regards to habitat preservation. Restoration, on the other hand, is extraordinarily expensive. WDFW spends little or no money of its own on habitat restoration, relying on federal grants and the SRF Board, which is a combination of state and federal sources. Not to get into details, but it often looks as though the cost of restoring a unit of aquatic habitat is tenfold more costly than the direct and indirect costs of protecting it from degradation in the first place. But I digress.

The reason I try to make a point regarding hatchery audits is totally because the return on investment (ROI) to the taxpaying and license buying citizen is all but disappearing. When ocean survival rates are high, and there are abundant hatchery and wild salmon, and angling opportunity abounds, those who pay WDFW's freight in taxes and licenses don't care all that much that the lion's share of salmon are harvested in AK, BC, and WA treaty and non-treaty commercial fisheries. However, now that ocean survival rates return minimal numbers of harvestable fish to those who pay to produce them, it is both reasonable and necessary that WDFW audit hatcheries with respect to the return to those who fund them. This is particularly so at a time when WDFW insists that it requires more money from the GF and from license buyers to carry out management activities for fish that, for the most part, don't even exist any longer.

This is more than a paradigm shift. WDFW can no longer justify its activities as "because this is the way we've always done it." It's become a malfeasance of duty to raise millions of hatchery salmon and release them into an ocean that no longer supports their survival at a rate that supports fishing by those who pay the bills.

Two years ago when anglers complained to central WA WDFW that not enough trout were being stocked in Grant County lakes they were told that WDFW didn't have enough money. That, of course, was complete [Bleeeeep!]. All WDFW needed to do is reprogram one salmon hatchery to trout production - all with existing funds - and the people in Grant County would have to be digging some new lakes to find room for all the additional trout that could be produced. My point here is that WDFW is stuck on doing what they've been doing because making a significant change would require making a decision. And making a decision is antithetical to a bureaucrat. So instead, WDFW managers would rather keep raising hatchery salmon - at our expense, with next to nothing in return - for AK and Canada and commercial fishing to catch, even though they contribute little or nothing to the $$ cost of doing so. Sorry for the thread drift.

I see what you mean Salmo. What I was trying to say was that managing habitat for "ecosystem values" gets you better habitat for hunted and fished animals. And certainly protecting the habitat in the first place is cheaper.

I agree that they out to do much better with trout.

To drift the thread some more, just how are we going to bring in new anglers? I can see folks with kids going to a pond to catch sunfish (like I did) or fishing for hatchery trout stocked in the stream by CDFG (walk and wade). But WA seems to be hell bent on emphasizing angling that requires a boat. I really can't imagine someone who neve fished waking up one day and deciding to buy an ocean-going boat to chase salmon. Or a bass boat or walleye boat. These are great fisheries, but they aren't entry-level.

Agree 100%. My entry level was experienced as an 8-10 yr old chasing planted trout on the Cispus R. My Gramps taught me on a fly rod and reel w/ mono strip n cast worms/pautzke's/salad shrimp... wish it was flies. Hooked ever since. With age and experience graduated to Steelhead and Fly Fishing. The rest shot up from there. Without that early exposure, never would be where I am today. Do have to say I am a boat owner and chase salt water fish. But I think that is what everyone graduates to at some point?

My first fishing trips were along the upper Sacramento with my Dad when I was 2. My first real memories were the summer of '59 when I handled some trout at Y-camp, the caught a bunch of planters in a creek in the Sierra. Spent the next 10-15 years chasing either trout or sunfish/bass. almost never from a boat. The only boat trips were trolling and that gets damn boring when nothing bites.

For me, the best schooling I had was Green Sunfish in a couple ponds in a park. Handline at first, with an egg hook and doughballs . They were small, often 2-3" with 4 or 5 being a toad. Occasionally fly fished for them , used spinners once. But you learned to put the bait in good cover, how to feel bites, and so on. Plus, when an hour of fishing gave you 20-30 fish, you got positive feedback.

When I came up to WA for Grad School I first heard about that magical fish "Steelhead". The popular knowledge was that it was 100 hours per fish, averaged over all the idiots. I don't know, but as a youngster I really don't think that standing on the bank on cold winter day for days at a time with nothing to show for it but cold hands was not my idea of how to get someone into the game.

CM-
Once again it might be good to define some of our terms.

Typically when folks hear the terms "managing habitat for ecosystem values" we think of habitats that would support the historic or near historic abundances of fish and wildlife. We all would do well to remember that here in the Washington the decision has clearly been made with wide support society has opted for a broader definition of "managing habitat for ecosystem values". That expanded definition ecosystems values includes all the infrastructure we have decided we need to live (our cities, roads, power generation, water, etc.) as well as managing much of the remaining lands for such things as agriculture and forestry. In the Puget Sound basin it is clear for at least the anadromous salmonids we as a society have co-op much of that historic ecosystem for are own uses leaving precious little available for those salmonids.

The decision seems to be that we might be willing to reserve maybe 5% of that original ecosystem for those fish. Of course that comes with a huge caveat - as long as it does not cost us too much!!

In that reality management agencies like WDFW have few if any magical bullets increase historic fish and wildlife species.

Collectively if we want more salmon we need to cast fewer stones at our management agencies (though they certainly deserve some) and more time looking in our mirrors asking if those societal decisions have been worth while and are we willing to pay the price to reverse some.

Curt

I have to disagree about just how bad the current habitat is. The lowlands are (generally) trashed which compromises coho production because they have lost the beaver pond swamp complexes. Some watersheds are worse than others and should be written off for the production of wild anadromous salmonids. These are the only ones where hatchery production should occur.

But, over the last 20 years we have seen cyclic ups and downs (huge) in pinks and chums. There is no reason why, in years of abundance, streams can't have 1.5-2 kg/sq m of spawners. This would be multi-millions in the larger systems. As has been shown in AK (and hinted at in a couple of WA systems) these escapements produce greatly enhanced returns of coho and steelhead. The kicker is that the low returns, particularly of coho, can be modeled as "sustainable" so we keep the numbers low.

Often there are complaints that sediment levels damage egg-fry survival. The cheapest way too clean that out, as has been shown in Fraser, is mass spawning. That doesn't keep it out; land use planning does that. But it gets it out.

Pictures of WA watersheds, particularly on the westside, from the late 1800s/early 1900s show watershed bereft of trees. And that produced more fish than watersheds are capable of now?

If the freshwater habitat and the marine habitat are so bad, why are the native char and anadromous cutthroat responding to recovery actions? Are they simply better adapted to the trashed watersheds?

I agree we have a long ways to go, but I don't think the habitat is as bad as folks are pushing.