If my bosses ignored facts instead of science in something as important as fish runs

I wouldn't work for such ilk, I would work against them. Otherwise you have no

integrity, just an awful need for a paycheck.

I guess the govt. entities that are oiling bird eggs in the Columbia are doing it for

no reason at all. As far as sea lions and seals they don't have to be starving to be

overpopulated. They have lots of fish to eat.

Meanwhile our runs (or what's left of them) are being

decimated. Anyone who fishes regularly in the Chehalis or Puget

Sound can see the increase over the last 40 years. Anything to shift the blame

away from the state's failure to manage our stocks.

Overpopulation, in the ecological sense which is my world of work, results in starvation as there are too many of them and too little food. Your "overpopulation" is a social construct as in "they are eating my fish". i don't disagree that the pinniped populations have to be at least temporarily reduced to aid in recovery of salmon but salmon recovery (at least as practiced in the eastern Pacific) is focused on controlling/fixing everything other than fisheries.

And yes, sometimes one strays in a position to maintain income, health insurance and such. But, as many on here know, there are folks on the inside working hard for change through a variety of channels. More would be accomplished by dealing with the Generals that pissing and moaning about the Privates.

3/13/2022

grrrrrr, just moved all my clocks ahead, 81% of the State wants to remain of Daylight saving year around but the "Feds say no", what happened to State Rights??????

Sorry about above, just pisses me off..

Now back to the problem, forget about Alaska and Canada taking Washington raised fish, HOW TO FIX Grays Harbor, Chehalis Side Problem??????

Rivers, Hoquiam, Wishkah, Wynoochee, and Satsop are NOT MAKING Escapement most years, in the past 10 years.

What to do????? Who needs to be held accountable in 2022???? What needs to be done????? or could salmon, on Chehalis side, be facing a future like Coastal Steelhead????

So you tell me in one post that sea lions and seals are not "over

populated" and then in another you say that you "don't disagree

that the pinniped population have to be at least temporarily reduced

to aid in salmon recovery" . As with a lot of fisheries employees I have

talked to or heard from it sounds like you are talking out of more

then one side of your mouth. And I have given flack to more then one

"general" and it does about as much good as talking to "the privates".

“So you tell me in one post that sea lions and seals are not "over

populated" and then in another you say that you "don't disagree

that the pinniped population have to be at least temporarily reduced

to aid in salmon recovery" . As with a lot of fisheries employees I have

talked to or heard from it sounds like you are talking out of more

then one side of your mouth.”

It’s the new age fisheries management language for this state. Always used to answer prickly questions, and served up to us, the dweebs that fund them....

The problem is see, with pinnipeds, is that they are taking many of the fish early in the growth cycle. Others in the food chain, including humans, are generally taking fish later on. With hatcheries pushing out huge numbers of smolts as mitigation in a shorter time period and with obstacles like the hood canal bridge, these predators can basically wipe out a large percentage and knock the entire food chain out of whack. The number of fish returning would probably be low enough that the runs would fall and the predator population would collapse, but the hatcheries then pump up production and produce enough to continue the cycle. It eventually will collapse, but the process is going to take a much longer time that it has in the past. And, for it too happen, the returning runs will have to be so correct that a natural correction may not be possible.

Like it or not, humans are part of the ecosystem and have altered it in many ways. Altering it in one area and not in another can have serious implications.

Agree 100% and predator management needs to expand and increase statewide.

Bob,

Surely you're not so dense that you cannot see that there are many shades of gray between black and white. Trying to explain that there are different perspectives does not equal "talking out more than one side of your mouth." From a fisherman's narrow perspective, any predator that eats fish that might otherwise be caught by fishermen is a predator that needs to be controlled. From the perspective of an ecologist, predators that eat fish are parts of a natural ecosystem, and fishermen are just another group of predators. In the natural order of things, one predator is no better nor worse than another. There are likely other perspectives as well, and there is no one "right" perspective or point of view, even if we, as fishermen, are partial to the view that provides the most fish for us to catch.

Salmo,
I as I was trying to say early, man has altered the natural order of things, but tries to pretend we have not. The best example is probably Hersel and the other sea lions. They used a non-natural barrier to decimate a run. Because we hesitated to intervene, and the natural order of things took place, with the run basically bringing the run down to nothing. If the numbers were increased, the sea lions would be back. If we want the run to exist, we need to reduce the predators at the site. If we want the new natural order to take place, then we have ignore the fact that we have altered the site to produce a situation where the run will no exist.

Just because man has altered environments does not mean that we can't try to restore them. There is also a very big difference between you suggestion to "control Herschel at the locks" and simply kill pinnipeds. Surgical removal of problem animals should never be a problem, like stock-killing predators. But killing them all is not the answer.

Also, the predators we are trying to control don't have a choice. To exist, pinnipeds eat fish. They don't have a choice. Humans do.

I believe our efforts at salmon restoration, and likely many other species, will fail because society does not want to change/compromise/accomodate. It's my way or the highway.

I find it "funny" that all the negative responses I get about this are former employees of wdfw and all the positive responses I get are generally from non wdfw employees, i.e. rec fishermen. coincidence? I think not. Just because you worked for the state it certainly doesn't make your points more valid then ours. Just another "good old boys " club.

No one here suggested that we "kill them all." Great "quote" there,

nice way to make shi* up. It's my way or the highway is how the state

rolls, not us.

As a former WDF/WDFW employee I have an "ownership" of sorts to my alma mater. It pains me to see what could be done better, or another way. WDFW now has too short of an institutional memory, for instance the unfortunate "Ten Year" average. I was in enforcement, so I didn't manage the fisheries, although I did have input on some regulatory changes that I did manage to change. I think WDFW is plagued by an attitude in some divisions that "If it doesn't affect me, I don't care"

One of the big questions is: Is this a service agency or a conservation agency? Acquiring more property for the public to recreate is working. Not so on salmon steelhead conservation. Providing planted trout to harvest is a resounding success, I think, and is strictly a service to anglers, not conservation. Complex agency. When I get together with former WDFW-ers the talk is always how the agency could do better, and we don't understand why it isn't..

Seals are starving. Here in Des Moines they “rehabilitate”(feed) them and release them back into the wild. https://www.sealifer3.org/
From their Facebook page: “Many of our winter harbor seal patients come to our care because they are seen lethargic and coughing on beaches.”
We are artificially increasing the numbers beyond carrying capacity.
Cruel and unethical IMO.

Looked at that site. A picture shows a bunch of young do gooders eager to help. Bet not one of them have either fished or hunted. That is our fault. Those of us that are left are a dying breed on dwindling/dying resources. I don't think it can be turned around. All my grandkids are going to get are bunch of old pictures of what was.

You know that your back-handed insults about "fishermen's narrow perspective"

says basically that ALL fishermen have this narrow perspective about other fish

eating predators being needed to be controlled is total B.S. It's the kind of

response I'd expect from you and the other members of "the good old boys club".

I only feel that other predators need to be controlled when numbers exceed the

carrying capacity of the food source.

As far as "surely you can't be so dense " is a passive aggressive way to insult

someone who doesn't agree with you. "Shades of grey" is a pretty weak way to

justify saying two different things that contradict each other posted by the same

person in the same thread isn't just lying.

I have as little respect for how members of "the good old boys club" respond to

criticism as I have for your self serving arguments.

If man manages one species in an ecosystem he better manage them all or nature will manage them for him.

Problem is that man isn't as smart as mother nature despite what he thinks.

Amen to this!