Been in fish-geek mode this weekend.
The subject of timelines for salmon recovery came up at our Willapa Bay Advisor meeting yesterday when the state posed the question of whether or not a 20 yr timeline is a reasonable expectation for wild chinook recovery in WB?
Advisors were told to consider things in the context of "other" chinook recovery plans. Staff cited that many NOAA-F plans are framed within the perspective of reducing extinction risk within 100 years. They also cited recovery woes in Puget Sound.... ESA listed since 1999.... with NOTHING to show for all of the recovery "efforts" to date. What could one reasonably expect in 20 yrs?
I countered with an example from the other end of the spectrum.... Snake River fall chinook. ESA-listed 26 years ago when the wild population was reduced to only 78 spawners! In recent years, recovery efforts spearheaded largely by the Nez Perce nation have resulted in annual returns of 50-60K adults.
Granted, most of them are hatchery origin spawners with the latest science demonstrating HRSG metrics of :
pNOB = 0.28
pHOS = 0.76
PNI = 0.27
https://www.fws.gov/lsnakecomplan/Meetin...20symposium.pdfNot exactly the best HSRG metrics for wild recovery, BUT....
It fits modern-day societal expectations of abundance.... and more importantly the ability to conduct fisheries. In this case, at a 65% exploitation rate!
Is this truly wild recovery? Or just an expensive convoluted scheme to prop up entrenched fisheries?
I don't know.... but as the years go by, the more convinced I am that if there's no incentive to be able to fish on them, our motivations to recover them simply evaporate.
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)
"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)
The Keen Eye MDLong Live the Kings!