Hot off the press!

https://nwsportsmanmag.com/esa-listing-not-warranted-for-olympic-peninsula-steelhead/

https://nwsportsmanmag.com/reaction-to-final-not-warranted-olypen-steelhead-esa-finding/

What do some of our resident steelhead experts think of this decision?

I would bet that the review did not look back very far, probably to the 90s if we're lucky even though there is some good information back into the early 1900s.

Steelhead are **ucked because they interfere with salmon management and on the NI side they are primarily caught by sporties whose actions (C&R, wanting to fish, etc) are opposed by the Tribes. Once they are essentially gone, the state and tribes can more conveniently manage salmon.

I do realize the "manage salmon" is an oxymoron.

I find the issue of Steelhead for WA strange. With a record of failure on every level with this issue one would think WDFW would chart another way of aproaching the issue. For many creatures around the planet humans have driven them to the brink and when that stops the creature does not recover and this is what the co-managers are heading for. Museum remnants that bios can can write about. Now that is SAD!

Based on what I read about from BC, steelhead are just too much a problem as they interfere with salmon. In the fall they complicate chum fishing and in the spring Chinook. Summers mess up everything. And since we know who runs the show here, I don't see any change.

Small museum runs with "acceptable" bycatch in net fisheries and leave them alone the rest of the time.

There are at least a few streams where an intensive hatchery program, even with Chambers Creek, could work.

I read that folks who like steelhead are lobbying the Leg for money to reopen and run Skamania. You saw from that decision where the value is placed.

Maybe some big changes are ahead,, structural type changes to the system and Territory itself based on a change of world system... No more international waters and a trilateral governance vs the current one world governance system of the UN,, WEF and WHO...

Maybe saltwater and fresh water food and sport interests regarding seafood and fish may shift based on changes to the global system... There may not be treaties any longer with other nations regarding waters and resources in the western hemisphere.. New deals will be struck and the emphasis will likely be towards what is best for the united states and North America and less towards global interests.. Maybe a most subsistence type direction is what is coming,, take what you need instead of all you can get..

One just needs to look at the Alaska trawl to see how well that works. The Seattle fleet goes up there and makes money hand over fist. Just kind of ignoring the bycatch of salmon (Constitutionally guaranteed fisheries closed), halibut, crab, even starfish. Oh, the trawl is "midwater". Yeah, the US looking for US interests will work well. AK and WA can take Fraser sockeye, Canada can hammer our Chinook and coho. We don't need any international agreements.