If I'm available, I may attempt to stop in on the next meeting. I am not the most knowledgable person on the politics and allocations, but at least a seat or two will be filled.

Sorry I wasn't there. I always have something to say, don't really care if some toes get stepped on.

Probably, a good thing PA goes home to Westport and doesn't sneek into some of the local meetings.

Interesting to note that BM has been missing from the meetings....have some comments for her.

This is interesting and is a good start in figuring out the sports economic contribution. How much does the average Joe drop on a license? I'm sure you could triple the number annually for gas, food, bait, lodging, launch fees, speeding tickets, guides, guide tips, tackle, etc...

http://www.ifish.net/board/showthread.php?p=5557225#post5557225

I believe Commissioner Smith also voted against the new P.S. crab policy rejecting the economic analysis which clearly showed recreational opportunity/harvest a far better use than commercial harvest. Lots of commercial fishermen in Bellingham.

Double post from the FTC thread but I thought it is important as the next Adviser meeting is tonight & citizens can set in. Now active non Adviser comments are reserved for the last hour but you can and SHOULD speak your mind.



As the Grays Harbor Management Plan ( GHMP ) is being worked on I thought I would put up this E mail thread to help folks understand WHY it is important to get involved. This thread is about Chum and how Region - 6 District 17 manages the preseason forecast by lumping Chum in one number rather than manage by stock. ( individual streams ) Now if you were to break escapement down further by defining the Wynoochee and Wishkah at say equal to the Satsop, then very rough numbers ( close guess? ) for the mainstem Chehalis for Chum would be 7140. Keeping in mind the 7140 is just a working guess but likely in the ball park, doubts on why the up river Chum stocks are being exterminated by commercial harvest should be gone. Good lord has anyone seen Chum in numbers that are needed above the Satsop?

So one more time. WDF&W Region 6 District 17 staff get away with this because WE blindly accept information provided, do not stay involved, and FAIL TO RECOGNIZE IT IS THE COMMISSION THAT MUST REQUIRE THE NECESSARY REFORMS. The absolute mess the GHMP has become is because the local communities ( especially the inland communities ) have allowed it to happen. You add the fact that the Commission has blindly accepted the dribble out of R-6 D-17 you get what we see.





From: Hughes, Kirt M (DFW)
To: Warren, Ron R (DFW);
cc: Scharpf, Mike M (DFW); Holt, Curt L (DFW); Herring, Chad J (DFW);
Subject: RE: Chum
Date: Tuesday, March 19, 2013 1:31:00 PM

Although we do not have the forecast model developed in a manner to specifically forecast at a tributary specific level, we could do that but it will require a LOT of work and tie we do not currently have. That said, not that I recommend doing so, one could roughly allocate the Grays Harbor wide goal and forecast by the relative portions of spawner habitat at the level Dave is requesting. While there might
be some argument for this being acceptable for the goal, there is no basis for doing this with the forecast but I guess we will do it anyway. The complexity of escapement, age composition, and productivity should really be brought to account.

Anyhow, available spawner habitat is approximately 22% in the Humptulips, and 78% in the Chehalis (of total GH habitat 22% is in the Satsop).

Following through on this as a way to split the forecast as David is interested in you get the following.

Goal 2013 Forecast
Humptulips 4,620 6,758
Satsop 4,620 6,758
Chehalis (excluding Satsop) 11,760 17,201



From: Warren, Ron R (DFW)
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 8:30 AM
To: Hughes, Kirt M (DFW)
Subject: FW: Chum


From:
Sent: Thursday, March 14, 2013 7:58 AM
To: Warren, Ron R (DFW)
Subject: Fwd: Chum

Ron,

Any idea on when your guys will provide the requested info below on Chum?


From:
To: "Ron Warren" <ron.warren@dfw.wa.gov> Cc: "Jim Scott" <scottjbs@dfw.wa.gov> Sent: Thursday, March 7, 2013 6:24:28 AM Subject: Chum


Mr. Warren,

After reviewing the Grays Harbor advisory meeting last night,
( March 6, 2013 ) I found the information provided to well short of what is needed to address Chum harvest for Grays Harbor as a whole or the Chehalis Basin. As a member of the Grays Harbor Advisory Group I am formally requesting to be provided the following information.

1. A 2013 Preseason Forecast for the number of returning Chum adults to the Humptulips River.

2. A 2013 Preseason Forecast for the number of returning Chum adults to the Chehalis River.

3. A 2013 Preseason Forecast for the number of returning Chum adults to the Satsop River.

In case one missed the first look at the sideboards presentation, PDF- http://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/meetings/2013/11/nov0813_12_presentation.pdf

The link below is to the 2013 Preseason Forecast. Download the Excel sheet and open up the Forecast Eval tab and much to your amazement you will see the Commission presentation graph on Chinook is TOTALLY different showing we DO NOT make escapement. So your choices are:

1. mistake
2. fabrication of the Commission Presentation graph
3. District 17 modified the numbers to show what they wanted.

Your choice 1/2/ or 3!

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B2tWjgmgVy3ySXE0Rnd6SFlRNUk/edit?usp=drive_web&pli=1

I pointed out in my testimony that the chinook graph presented at Saturdays hearing on GH was misleading.... appearing as if we typically made escapement on wild Chehalis fall chinook.

If they backed out the hatchery strays on the gravel, the chinook escapement graph presented to the commission would have looked more like the one on page 25-26 on the pdf link you just posted... showing only 3 escapements above goal in the most recent 15.

I'm coming to the conclusion that managers view exceeding the escapement goal as an occurrence to be AVOIDED at all cost.... a management failure. The historic escapement trend seems to reflect that mindset quite well.

Heaven forbid that any additional wild fish make it to the gravel.

By that measure, they've "succeeded" in 12 of the last 15 returns.

One of the strategic blunders of the WDFW-style of escapement-based management really hinges on the agency's insistence on clinging to a point-escapement goal. If they don't make it, it's a management failure. If they exceed it, even by just a couple hundred fish, it's a management failure.

They are literally setting themselves up for mission impossible.

And given the likelihood of failure in that scenario, they're much MORE prone to err on the side of OVERharvest than they are to err on the side of underharvest. Hey if we're gonna fail anyway, may as well fill those totes to overflowing along the way, eh?

Look, the agency goes to the allocation table at NOF believing it's armed with tools and models honed to surgical precision.... that they can somehow harvest down to the last fish... or in some cases down to the fraction of a fish when harvesting over ESA-listed stocks. What they got ain't any better than a butter knife.

So what's the alternative?

How about a target escapement range... what managers in Alaska refer to as a BEG or biologic escapement goal. This objective reflects the range of escapements most likely to produce MSY thru the ebb and flow of spawning/rearing conditions in the freshwater habitat as well as the oft-cited "ocean conditions" in the marine habitat. Neither is static.... and therefore neither should be the escapement goal.

From a more pragmatic perspective, an escapement range gives the agency, with its rudimentary tools of butter knife precision, a broader management target to successfully achieve.

There could be less emphasis on spending down the last fish. Let's say they let a few extra get by... no harm no foul as long as it's within the BEG range.

providing a range will simply allow them to fish to the lower end of the range. When i started out in management I supported the point goals as being best, rather than a range since the range would always allow for fishing to the minimum.

Now, I think a fixed harvest rate would be best. FIXED at (say) 20% regardless of runsize. IF the rate is low enough then the runs should increase. As they increase, the actual harvest will increase, too, along with escapement.

This may be fairly easy to do with chum, but coho and Chinook become more difficult because of the catches outside of WA waters.

For sure.

I don't think there is any such thing as actual over-escapement in the Chehalis basin with today's management scheme. Sure, the habitat has been altered the last 150 years but a lot of that habitat is still there and under-utilized. Do some late-season hikes in some of the tribs and you'll see carcasses strewn about here and there but it's far from "walking across their backs, they were so thick" as so many old-timers share.

And the managers are actually concerned about too many fish hitting the gravel around here? Speechless.

It seems there are two kinds of over-escapement; the one that results in exceeding a basin's carrying capacity (and a subsequent crash in the populations) and the other, which results in a lost revenue opportunity for commercial processors and distributors. I don't know what the carrying capacity of the Chehalis Basin is, but I'm pretty sure the current escapement goals don't come dangerously close. That would seem to point to WDFW being more concerned with the later. An extra fish gone to the gravel is a wasted fish. Hence, the way our fisheries are managed. Better to apologize to conservationists for killing a few too many than to face the wrath of those who appoint the director for letting too many escape.

The State and tribes can fall back on agreements and orders that came out of Boldt that made it clear that any fish in excess of the escapement goal is wastage. Under WA law, it is illegal to waste fish. To change that is going to take going to court, having the Co-Managers agree, or having WDFW conduct experiments in "overescapement" in Willapa where they don't have to ask co-manager permission for management schemes.

Precisely why the point-escapement does NOT work.

The mindset of managers is that anything above it is WASTE.

BY redefining the target goal, and let's be clear that I am advocating for a range here, the potential for over-escapement "waste" is diminished.

For example a BEG range on the Kenai was once 7200-14400. The range of acceptable escapements was equal to the lower bounds of the goal. In this case, managers could craft a season using conservative models to harvest for an escapement of 7200. Let's say post-season that the actual harvest ended up considerably more conservative than the pre-season estimate and the actual escapement was 10492.

Management failure?

With a point escapement of 7200… yes! The bastards let 3292 fish swim by the fleet unharvested! The next year, you can bet the harvest model would be adjusted to make sure those surplus fish WOULD be harvested. Repeated again and again with each passing year to ensure that every last fish beyond the 7200 would eventually be harvested… even if it meant "occasionally" harvesting too many. Isn't this EXACTLY what we are doing in GH?

With a BEG of 7200-14400… an escapement of 10492 is absolutely NOT a failure. So what… a couple extra thousand fish made it to the gravel. Just the cost of doing business to do right by the fish.

Before there was the kind of harvest we see today, say 1000 years ago, I'm sure the rivers were over-escaped.

No. 1000 years ago there was no such thing as escapement. Before whitey showed up, I doubt there were many problems getting enough back to the gravel.

That's not really true. The Tribes had some pretty effective fisheries that did affect escapement. Indigenous peoples had some significant imapcts on existing resources.

Polynesians caused more extinctions of birds in Hawaii than did Europeans. Throughout the tropical Pacific they caused significant extinctions.

The megafauna in North America disappeared after the arrival of humans. While climate change was certainly involved, it wasn't the only cause.

There is some literature that suggests that the abundance of fish and game seen in western NA in the early 1800s and beyond was aided by the fact that smallpox arrived ahead of them.

It's not Indians, it's not Euroamericans, it is simply human greed and an unwillingness to control ourselves.

" I don't know what the carrying capacity of the Chehalis Basin is "

Well nobody does as it has not been properly defined other than miles of stream = X. But in its natural state the Chehalis was a Coho producing machine and if I recall when we did that exercise a very low run was around 180K and this was not necessarily pre European but rather pre cannery. In fact the biomass of the carcasses was so large that if you took every carcass from returns from every hatchery in the state and put it in the Chehalis Basin you were still short of the natural biomass pre settler.

The thing is prior to canneries the tribal fisheries supplied salmon for the town inhabitants or another way to say it is they were the commercial fisheries. The massive change came when cannery technology was developed and $$$ were to be made, big time.

The Task Force, I believe, had an analysis (called EDT) done for the whole basin. One of the products was an estimate of the available spawning area used by springs and fall Chinook and coho. From that, one can apply various "goals" based on spawners per mile, density per square metre, and so on. Whatever you use, they come in a lot higher than current numbers.