A paper came out last year about the collapse of Oregon's coho fishery in the 80s and how groupthink caused it. 'Information flow in fisheries management : systemic distortion within agency hierarchies' by Siitari,Martin and Taylor. Maybe it applies to everyone's thinking and not only management agencies.
In 'Defending Reality' by Bob Lackey...he cite the fact that there used to be salmon and giant sturgeon all along the eastern seaboard once upon a time too and people were unwilling to do what was needed to save them. Why expect any difference on the west coast?

Dave Montgomery's King of Fish details how man has systematically destroyed anadromous fish in norther Europe, eastern North America and eastern Asia. We are pretty good and consistent at it.

Jim Lichatowich has a couple of books on the subject, too.

There was an interesting meeting Portland a few months after Bob Lackey's Salmon 2100 was presented at the AFS meeting in Anchorage. Policy folks representing each of the Pacific states and some major industries like hydro were asked to respond to S2100. Do you agree or not. And, most importantly, why. Keynote was by Bill Ruckleshouse. Nobody, except the guy from Montana, would even address whether or not the agreed with Bob's 4 Driving issues, much less how they responded to the presentations of the future.

Leadership simply won't even consider dealing with the problems.

It would be nice to think that we could learn from past failures... I'd also like to think we're a little more enlightened than the east coast diptards.
Like I said, it would be nice....... not holding my breath though..