WFC is taking some heat from the Tribes

Will the WFC lawsuits put the Sportfishermen and the Tribes on the same team?

It seems to me that for the first time in my 35 years I might be witnessing a shift in some aspects of fishing politics (at least when it comes to PS Steelhead).

Any thoughts on the topic

The Wild Fish Conservancy ignores habitat when they’re making their case for steelhead

Someone posted a link to a video about this WFC topic about a year ago. I think it was on vimeo. I never got a chance to watch it. If someone out there know what video I'm talking about I would really like to see it. If you could post a link I would really appreciate it.

Thanks!

I think that sporties and the NWIFC do have some common ground in hatchery issues...and I have had some issues with how the WFC has operated the last couple of years, especially...but to say that the WFC "ignores" habitat would be a gross misstatement.

The lawsuit in question is not about habitat, it's about hatchery/wild interactions.

Fish on...

Todd

Is their intentions really the protection of wild fish? The illogical approach to some of the topics they attack or ignore would leave a person to assume they are after money for lawsuits.

I can't argue with that at all...arguing in favor of studying a broodstock program on the Skagit is the most ridiculous, and calling out the water intake diversion at Tokul as an ESA violation, then challenging WDFW's permit application to fix it...well, that's just a straight up crock'o'shitt and makes them look like idiots worthy of ridicule.

They do, however, address habitat issues all the time and I suspect that the recent attacks on hatchery fish are actually a backdoor attempt to get everyone to focus on habitat issues.

Fish on...

Todd

Their intentions are definitely about the protection of wild fish. Not limited to WFC, questioning actions or tactics seems fair but questioning intentions starts veering towards conspiratorial territory.

WFC is for the birds. Nuff said.

fixed it for you.

no fan of wfc after their area 4/lingcod bull but i would be very careful getting into bed with tribal gillnetters.

fish trying to access the best habitat in the state are being denied by tribal gillnets. i agree that habitat is critical for salmon, but some of the best habitat in the lower-48 doesn't teem with wild fish solely due to tribal gillnets and either their hatchery plants or plants they would fight tooth and nail to retain.

That is a scary proposition, right there. So long as the hatchery Chambers Ck steelhead were stocked in the Skagit, the treaty gillnet fishery has focused on those fish, with very small numbers of native, wild steelhead taken. If a signficant hatchery program using native broodstock is undertaken, then hatchery and wild steelhead will have identical migration timing. And when tribal gillnets are in the water, both hatchery and wild steelhead will be taken.

I say it's scary because some of the ESA biologists who would review the program are of the mind that as long as the genetics are the same, it's OK, even though we know it's not the genetics; it's the hatchery rearing experience that compromises reproductive fitness through heritable attributes.

If WFC supports native steelhead broodstock programs without understanding what that means in terms of treaty fishing, that's f'n looney.

Sg

"through heritable attributes"

How is this not genetic?

How much money, time, and resources have been WASTED by WFC in pursuit of their outlandish schema of lawsuits. The hatchery lawsuit is only one of many acts of desperation by WFC to force action (that has ultimately failed them, us, and the resource). Lest we not forget their lawsuits against individual biologists as a followup to the Elwa project....

The point here is they are burning up energy, and wasting the time and resources of themselves, the tribes, WDFW and anyone else they poison with their nonsense. The energy they have put into destructive critisism of other agencies could have been used to (a) find and restore habitat resources themselves (b) conduct in basin monitoring efforts to determine the effectiveness of other projects aimed at restoring wild fish, and (c) get off the jock of other agencies so they can DO THEIR JOBS and continue to restore and monitor habitat throughout the PS watersheds.

So yes, they HAVE completely ignored habitat, by aiding in its degradation.

The tribal argument presented here is extremely weak. The two figures the Fish Comm present don't even show the same data. One shows population trends and sport harvest over time and one shows harvest trends and hatchery plants. Apples and oranges. No conclusions can be drawn from their data, and whether impervious surface impacts populations is certainly not demonstrated with what they present.

Habitat is important, but their data simply don't make their point.

Here is a trend: The WFC is celebrating 25 years of existence this month and the wild fish numbers continue to trend down.

All of the WFC's "restoration projects", law suites & studies may offer little or no improvement for wild fish. This outfit is a tax dollar eating machine...Everybody on their staff collects a nice salary and the fish continue to struggle.

It is genetic, but it's not distinguishable through the allele separation. So the hatchery fish and the wild fish "appear" to be the same, genetically. It's all cool. Wazza' matter, you don't trust us?

Milt,

The first two graphs (Umpqua & Skagit) are from WFC, and you're right; they make a lousy comparison. Cherry picking and poor science. The impervious surface graphs are from NWIFC, and while it at least qualifies as science, it's not very good either. It's no easy task to identify the environmental metric(s) that explain the difference between the Umpqua and the Skagit. Both have a variety of habitat issues, and both have some of the "last best good quality" habitat in their respective regions. Being slightly familiar with the Skagit, the conclusion drawn between hatchery steelhead plants and declining sport catch particularly irritates me, since they totally ignore the habitat factors that have been degraded over exactly the time frame that the wild steelhead abundance and sport catch has declined.

Sg

The NWIFC should have added in a chart comparing these two things:

1. The areas of the Skagit where their tribal members use gillnets to harvest wild steelhead, and

2. The areas of the Umpqua where their (or any other) tribal members use gillnets to harvest wild steelhead.

Something tells me that they didn't leave those two out by accident.

Fish on...

Todd

According to folks I have talked to in Oregon, the Umpqua watershed has different and significantly more fertile base rock than does the Skagit. The higher fertility leads to higher productivity.

Streams with low productivity need imported nutrients rather than eroded ones. This is also why many of the Great Lakes tributaries appear to be so productive of fish. The base rock provides the nutrients.

Salmo - Thanks for catching that. I didn't see that those graphs were from WFC and not the tribes. Either way, there is nothing there that one could draw anything meaningful from. The figures don't support a defensible argument for hatchery outplanting or habitat or anything else that may be driving populations. Same thing for the impervious surface figures though. Impervious may be correlated with observed population trends, but two watersheds don't demonstrate cause and effect.

You would think that both sides could pull together some better science to support their positions. I know they both have access to it.

In the end it always comes down to everyone being right to some degree. It never ends.

Todd,

A map of the area where Skagit tribes harvest wild steelhead would be rather meaningless without data showing the numbers of wild steelhead that they harvest. That would actually be a good scientific comparison and indicate that neither the Skagit nor Umpqua wild steelhead populations are much influenced by tribal netting, forcing the curious to look for other factors to explain the status of the respective wild steelhead populations.

Carcassman,

What, you mean not all freestone streams are as inherently productive as the limestone chalkstreams? Oh, the horror!

Sg

Just being fascetious...if they're going to use mostly irrelevant maps showing a mostly bogus comparison between the two I figgered they could just add the netting map in, too, as it would also be irrelevant.

Fish on...

Todd

I believe it, But managers here don't acknowledge the need for the nutrients. Oh well....................

One thing that I find a little flawed with the WFC in my opinion is that they are making a comparison between a coastal river and a Puget Sound river.

Comparing anything about the Umpqua to the Skagit is a downright tenuous connection at best...but mostly just laughable.

Fish on...

Todd

Todd -
You are correct of course - it would have been a much better comparison with other Salish system.

Maybe comparing the wild steelhead population trend with a system where the hatchery release had been more or less constant. An excellent example would be the Green - oops even though the hatchery releases have been constant over the last 30 years the population trend looks much the same.

Maybe a better comparison would have been with a system where hatchery steelhead releases were ended a couple decades ago. A couple good examples come to mind - the Cedar or Nisqually. Again even with the termination of hatchery releases the wild steelhead trend continued downward much like the Skagit fish.

Heck maybe we need to look a little further afield to Salish sea systems on the East side of Vancouver Island where steelhead were not being planted in the 1970s and 80s or where the hatchery programs ended. Maybe the best monitored system would be the Keogh river where until recently when a "rescue hatchery" program was started had not received hatchery plants.. Another oops - the wild steelhead population monitor from the late 1980s until 2010 look much the same as the Skagit.

One might be tempted to conclude that for Salish Sea steelhead that the presence of hatchery winter steelhead or the planting levels of those fish (at least at the various levels seen in the region) are at best minor bit players in driving Salish Sea wild steelhead abundance. Of course that would not make very good headlines.

Curt

This.

Fish on...

Todd

Todd,

I attended the senate testimonies earlier this year, as did others on PP.

WFC's testimony made the clear and indisputable claim that habitat is not the issue for steelhead declines. In fact, they cited the Scott and Gill 2008 report but then blatantly lied about the estimation of habitat loss in Washington. WFC claimed that 79% of the habitat is intact, yet there has been a 97% decrease in wild steelhead abundance in Puget Sound.

The video of of the testimony is available here. Fast forward to approximately minute 4:15 and see for your self. I don't think that any group who would write that testimony is secretly trying to backdoor habitat issues into the focus.

TastySalmon -

That 2008 report that Glasgow (WFC science director) cited can be found at -

http://wdfw.wa.gov/publications/00150/wdfw00150.pdf

That 79% can be found in table 7-10. What that 79% refers to is the amount of historical habitat that steelhead have access to (waters not cut of by dams, etc.).

From the same report (in section 3.9) some may interested in looking at finding #3.1. There the authors state that for the 42 Washington steelhead population assessed the average productivity loss was pegged at 83%. Interesting that WFC choice to cite the info from table 7-10 but ignored the productivity information provided later in the same report.

If one considers that average productivity loss coupled with recent marine survival drops (for the Salish Sea area that survival decline has been 80% or more) one arrives quickly at that 97% decrease in wild steelhead abundances. Wonder where the most effect focus on recovery activities might be?

Curt

Near as I can tell the loss of habitat productivity estimate they cited was based largely on opinion and conjecture, using subjective ratings of good, fair, and poor to characterize a variety of conditions. How anyone can extrapolate numeric estimates of habitat productivity loss from those kinds of opinions, I don't know. I will see if I can find the unpublished, non-peer reviewed Smith report they cite and review what they did. But I sure wouldn't put any faith at all in those numbers either.

Dammit Smalma. Putting actual data into the argument screws up the religious beliefs.

Thats funny. Arguments on all sides here seem to be more faith-based than factual. Not a lot of science presented so far. On any side. Putting any faith in the 83% number especially. At least WFC recognized the uncertainties in that one. Go ahead folks. Argue your beliefs. Cite your favorite numbers. We will solve the problem here on the internet.

Milt -
I recognize the uncertainty in the so-call "science" used these debates and it will always be the case there will be some softness in the various numbers if for no other reason there will be uncertainty in the starting point (historic conditions). That in itself does not undermine the value of looking at that information though as you point out it is important to recognize that softness. Though to be fair that consideration needs to be applied to all sides of the debate.

I thought it was appropriate to bring to the discussion information that used the same source document that WFC (thought its science director's testimony) brought to the debate.

((One additional comment. The Skagit winter steelhead population and planting trends shown in the link from the first post on this thread seems to indicate Skagit will steelhead will be going extinct (cross the zero axis line) at some time in the quarter century or so. Again from the same 2008 report information from Table 8-B2 (second annex of chapter 8) shows that the risk of the Skagit wild winter steelhead going extinct in the next 100 years is ZERO)).

A MAJOR EDIT - In the above paragraph I miss-read the graph. It is the harvest line that is declining and not the wild population line - I have left the original statement unedited other than placing in double (( )) to avoid any confusion.

Curt

I'll site my favorite number, 30....as in April 30th.
Call it factual, faith based or whatever you'd like.
I'd like to someday be able to again fish for Puget sound steelhead on that day.

Regarding our fisheries' management, everyone has their own opinion. I truly believe that the tribes have such a strong political pull that they are our biggest ally to fight nonsensical conservationists that are pushing a zero hatchery policy.

Degraded habitat in-river, polluted estuaries, the need for open fisheries for both tribal and non-tribal anglers... we need hatchery fish in Puget Sound. Period.

Those fighting the hatchery program need to shift their efforts and use their funds to purchase critical habitat, clean up the Puget Sound, remove dikes, restore estuaries, and plant some fracking trees!

Your suggestions would likely have positive results and it would be great to see movement towards these improvements.

Unfortunately, WFC, its membership, and other groups with similar intentions share an ideology. Similar to religious fundamentalists, their decisions and views are based more upon faith and ideals than cognizant perception, fact, or rational judgement.

Though WFC has received grants to implement small habitat or passage improvements, they do not believe that habitat limitations on a broad scale are responsible for wild salmon or steelhead declines.

Somewhat along these lines, I read this article yesterday that Bill McMillan wrote for the Native Fish Society and it was reprinted in the Osprey. There is plenty in there that I take exception to, but I think many of you will find it an interesting read.

There Can Be No Wild Steelhead Recovery Until We Get Rid of Hatchery Steelhead Period!
April 9, 2014
By Bill McMillan

This is just a reminder about wild fish conservation strategy successes and the part that Catch and Release (C&R) has played. We have long had C&R as a failed basis for wild steelhead recoveries in Puget Sound and other areas of the Northwest as a stand-alone management mechanism. The one most prominent example of a state fish managing agency that has most broadly achieved recovery of wild stream-bred salmonids in the Lower 48 is Montana (albeit after widespread losses of its original westslope cutthroat, grayling, and bull trout populations after early hatchery introductions of rainbow and brown trout). C&R of itself would have had no greater effect for Montana trout streams than has occurred in Puget Sound for steelhead if hatchery fish plants had not been halted. The basic step to recovery is GET RID OF HATCHERY STEELHEAD. PERIOD. Once that occurs then we can determine the angling management options. C&R means nothing unless we first make the necessary biological steps on which to base fish recovery. This is the message all U.S. salmonid anglers, managers, and scientists should have long ago learned from the Montana experiment and its lasting results.

I would also remind that Montana trout streams such as the Big Hole River still provide exceptional wild trout fishing despite habitat degradation through irrigation withdrawals in late summer/fall that greatly diminish stream flows. Would the wild trout populations do better if that did not occur? Of course. But it remains that degraded habitat, in this case a dewatered stream, can still provide considerable productivity of wild trout of large sizes in Montana. Wild fish somehow manage to adapt to what remains in a surprising breadth of instances.

The Great Lakes is an example of streams being hammered by logging beginning 200 or more years ago, and where streams often still have great silt loads as the long road to forest recovery continues – if at all. Despite this, early hatchery releases of steelhead in the late 1800s and early 1900s have resulted in those original plants making natural adaptations over time. Diverse and productive wild populations have evolved as a result. In those areas where hatchery introductions have not subsequently occurred in the streams that these fish naturally adapted to, they remain highly productive (more common in the Canadian region than that of the U.S.). However, where subsequent hatchery plants occurred, the wild populations began to fail with overall reduction in Great Lakes productivity. Below is a summary from Negus 1996):


* Peak catch per effort for steelhead in Lake Superior occurred in the 1960s prior to intensive hatchery stocking; from the 1970s onward catch per effort declined despite the annual stocking of millions of hatchery fry; this result correlates with a general decline in wild stocks when supplemented by hatchery fish in Minnesota waters (Negus 1996)

Ironically, now far outside their native range, wild Pacific salmon and steelhead return with broadly diverse life histories and large numbers to those Great Lakes streams managed for wild production without hatchery plants. This has occurred as wild Pacific salmon and steelhead in their native range along the Lower 48’s West Coast and interior have lost their breadth of former diversity, have lost their former abundance, and in most of their range are now extinct or ESA listed. This has occurred on the West Coast in concert with increasing use of hatcheries. This is despite remaining high quality habitat in large wilderness areas of Idaho and Washington’s Olympic National Park, and with most of the stream basins of Washington and Oregon having habitat that is at least the equal of Great Lakes streams.

Regarding C&R, in highly intensive fisheries where steelhead (or Atlantic salmon) are caught and released multiple times there is increasing evidence that C&R alone may contribute to loss of salmon and/or steelhead productivity. C&R, once considered a silver bullet for recovery of wild fish populations, will also likely need regulation. There is no free lunch for long. Conservation always has been and always will be based on human responsibility. The word conserve means to prevent loss – i.e. to limit what we do that leads to loss. This requires ever increasing self-examination and resulting self restraint in direct proportion to increasing human population in order to minimize further loss of natural resources to draw from. Bottom line, do we want a future for fisheries or not?

* “The real truth is that sport is made by and exists in just three things – tradition, ethics, and restraint. Reduce, remove, or destroy these and nothing useful is left. Most of the arguments about harvesting the run or taking the crop makes a measure of sense – some more, some less – if one accepts the premise: that the main purpose of sport is killing. Roderick Haig-Brown, Fisherman’s Summer, 1959.

The oldest hatchery steelhead program on the Pacific Coast, dating to the 1920s, is at Chambers Creek near Tacoma, Washington. A characteristic of hatcheries is that as they age returns diminish. It is little known but not surprising; the steelhead at Chambers Creek went extinct in 1997. This is the inevitable result of increasing domestication over ensuing generations. Hatcheries are the answer? Think again. And when these traits are passed on to a wild population, as found to have occurred in Forks Creek research in Washington. What then? There is a great loss in wild productivity. The Puget Sound example is pretty clear – wild steelhead threatened with extinction, hatchery fish a common no show, fishing closures to secure hatchery broodstock needs, and steelhead fishing seasons once five months long now reduced to two.

Combined tribal and sport fisheries that formerly harvested 5,000-18,000 wild steelhead in the 1950s in the Nooksack, Puyallup, and Skagit are today rivers with hatchery plants of 100s of thousands of smolts and resulting harvests reduced to 500-1,500 steelhead – 10% or less of what wild steelhead provided 60 years ago. This great loss has been within my lifetime. If you have a child one year old today, where will Puget Sound steelhead be when that child is 60 years old given this rate of decline: Functionally, if not totally, extinct.

How did the state of Montana get to where it is today? Montana fish managers took it on themselves to educate the public once the Vincent studies came out. Did Montana anglers welcome elimination of hatchery plants back then? No, they were initially as pro-hatchery as anywhere, but thanks to Montana informing the anglers with the facts and figures, they created an acceptance within the angling community. Is Washington doing this? Is Oregon? No. Instead fish managers in both states continue to promote the belief that they can only sustain themselves and the fishery with hatcheries and the funding they bring to the state. (See Steven Hawley’s comment below) As a friend once told me, they have no notion how to let go of a failed Business Plan and create a new one, based on the available science that works. A successful Business Plan for ODFW and WDFW will have to be consistent with law and science to address the causes of decline and extinction of native wild salmonids rather than replacing them with fish farming technology.

Back in the mid-1990s a Washington program called “Jobs for the Environment” began to retrain former out of work loggers and timber employees to work on fish habitat recovery. This occurred due to need to protect spotted owl habitat from further elimination of old growth forests that resulted from the Reagan administration’s accelerated logging on National Forests in the 1980s, and which further reduced the quality of fish habitat as well. Wild Fish Conservancy used this program to hire a number of its earliest field employees. This is the sort of investment that needs to occur in both Oregon and Washington fish managing agencies – retraining people to work in fisheries for what science indicates is needed for a recovery.

First thing when you wake up in the morning is to make sure your pants are on with the zipper in front, not in the back. Chances are a bad accident will occur if not. Oregon and Washington fish managing agencies have been walking around for 50 years with their pants on backwards. Fish managing agencies can't provide a sustainable fish resource future without retooling themselves into habitat and monitoring-based agencies. We have to design recovery on understanding the productive relationship between needed escapement (jobs, jobs, jobs in monitoring) and evaluation of habitat protection and recovery priorities (jobs, jobs, jobs in habitat fields) that will allow wild fish to continue to be productive. There is great need for a new employment vision by fish managing agencies that have been blind to seeing it any other way than for hatcheries. There is absolutely no use in providing these agencies with continued funding that they will only continue to try and divert into "make fish" programs with a hatcheries. Once they develop a new Business Plan for responsible operation and to effectively educate the public, then is the time to invest in what will provide a recovery future. Not before.

In Washington and Oregon all that is presently in place from which to try and educate the public is through the public itself – through conservation organizations, angling organizations, and sometimes angling magazines. However, it can be a two-edged sword. “Conservation” is a loose term when it comes to organizations and can be a misnomer built on increasing human use of resources rather than limiting use of resources (the word conservation means to protect from loss, or to preserve). It is often difficult to untangle the motives of all involved to determine if they are more focused on self interests, or if they are legitimately focused on finding a route out of the mess of continuous depletion of resources that deny the vital concept of sustainability.

One always hopes that there might be a Montana-type example in which one can trust the managing agency itself to both teach and live up to its mission of providing natural resource sustainability. But the Montana example is extraordinary and the public itself is the mixed human resource we typically have to draw from to try to educate ourselves through the available science literature. Unfortunately, the scientists themselves too often isolate themselves and avoid helping the public to understand the implications of their research and observations. In the case of Washington, the primary problem for Puget Sound steelhead (with the Nooksack, Skagit, and Snohomish basins all having many miles of remaining productive habitat) is loss of early run-timed wild steelhead.

An early paper by Hooton and Lirette (1986) described the vulnerability of early return Gold River wild steelhead because they are exposed to angling pressure for a long period of time. The Gold River early return steelhead remained in the lower river for weeks to months at a time before moving upstream to their spawning streams. The lower Gold River coincided with where anglers had most access and congregated. Whether through direct harvest by sport anglers (or commercial or subsistence net fisheries in the case of Puget Sound streams), or due to indirect loss as a result of multiple hookings in what may be an intensive area of C&R angling, steelhead that remain in place for weeks to months at a time are more vulnerable to loss. This loss can be anticipated to be in direct proportion to how early their arrival is and their subsequent length of time spent in an intensive fishery zone. Yet, it is these earliest fish that can be necessary to fill uppermost spawning grounds they eventually target, or lower tributary destinations whose entry may be dependent on certain flows and temperatures that may differ considerably from year to year. To arrive early can maximize the potential for entry and spawning of steelhead over the greatest breadth of time and thus limit the loss from any time limited catastrophic event (such as flood, drought, landslide, volcanic eruption, etc.).

For instance, 1980 steelhead that entered and spawned at Toutle River tributaries prior to May 18th likely had progeny that survived despite the super-heated mudflows that raced down the mainstems from the Mt. St. Helens eruption. But steelhead trying to enter after that time in 1980 would not likely have survived. And those that spawned in the main river prior to May 18th would not have survived either. From such run-timing diversity, wild steelhead recovered remarkably quickly after the St. Helens eruption in the Toutle basin. In the spring of 1985 a return of 1,800 wild steelhead returned to spawn in the South Fork Toutle alone. This was just five years after many thought that the Toutle basin would be barren of salmon and steelhead for a century. By 1988 over 2,200 wild steelhead spawned in the South Fork Toutle. Unfortunately, Washington Department of Game began planting hatchery summer steelhead into the South Fork Toutle in 1985 and the Green River of the Toutle basin in 1984. The rebuilding numbers of wild steelhead that survived the blast of a mountain could not survive the hatchery introductions. Wild steelhead in the South Fork Toutle today now number but 200-500.

Puget Sound wild steelhead recovery in the remaining more productive stream basins can’t occur with continued releases of Chambers Creek origin hatchery steelhead. One reason is because they return in the early winter months of December, January, and February which is the same time as the historically dominant early-returns of wild winter steelhead. Harvest rates of 80-90% have been targeted on early returning steelhead in the mistaken belief that Chambers Creek hatchery steelhead have always returned earlier than wild steelhead. In the case of the Skagit River, reduction of hatchery plants in 2008 to less than half of former numbers (had been 530,000 then down to 220,000) likely helped in subsequent gradual increases of wild steelhead returns in 2011, 2012, and 2013 (the last back up to 1998 levels, but still well below historic). These fish in the better remaining river basins in Puget Sound may well begin recovering quite rapidly if we just begin to address the hatchery problem. The longer we wait the longer the road back will be – and there comes a point where the resilience of a species is lost along with the potential for recovery.

Does Bill McMillan know that we aren't in Montana? and these are not resident rainbow?

I am tired of these guys using out of basin science to back up their side of the discussion. Lets see some in basin science before we start making decisions...oh wait, we passed that point.

Does anybody believe that fixing a few dikes, removing hatchery fish and planting a few trees is gonna fix this whole mess? It took man 200 years to screw up the PS river systems, its never gonna be the same. The habitat is too far altered to turn this thing completely around.

With no hatchery fish, all tribal/commercial fishing in the PS and in the ocean will be targeting whats left of the wild fish. At least with hatchery fish there is some mitigation in the commercial harvest and a percentage of wild fish pass will through to the spawning beds.

As a recreational fisherman I have come to the realization that when the Wild Steelhead is extinct we will be left with nothing and by my math 50% of nothing is still nothing.

We have a simple choice. If we want fishing today we will have to have hatcheries. If we want wild fish in the future we will have to significantly cut back on hatcheries. Which cuts back on fishing which cuts back on license sales.

Montana has no commercial fishing to deal with. Montana has no mixed stock fisheries to contend with. Montana manages its own fish, doesn't have to share them with other states and countries.

While biologically what is going on there could probably be applied here the politics are so different.

"Montana has no commercial fishing to deal with. Montana has no mixed stock fisheries to contend with. Montana manages its own fish, doesn't have to share them with other states and countries.

While biologically what is going on there could probably be applied here the politics are so different."

Not to mention that Montana waters are inherently many times more productive than WA's. Incremental habitat degradation causes more harm to coastal populations because calcium carbonate-based productivity is so low, nearly non-existent, to begin with. Some comparisons with Montana are relevant, others, like this, are not.

Sg

Yeah, Salmo, but we know how to increase in-stream productivity here. Perhaps there is something to streams with high amounts of nutrients producing good fish populations.

+ many. Want more steelhead? Need more nutrients. Need more nutrients? Need more salmon. Need more salmon? Don't kill so many in open ocean fisheries.

It just seems to this admittedly uneducated observer that it's all about salmon. Could it be that our ecosystems depend on them, even (gasp) more than the market does?

Back to the original topic, one thing I do like about these lawsuits is that they (might) inspire the powers that be to look at ways to better segregate hatchery stocks from wild. I don't think hatchery steelhead are the silver bullet the WFC is making them out to be, but I think our wild salmon (and, subsequently, steelhead) stocks would fare much better if they weren't subject to a management strategy that allows the vast majority of them to be harvested, the justification for which is that we must maximize harvest of the hatchery fish that swim in the same waters.

Nice cut n paste Mr. g.....especially on election day! Talk about spin! why even Obamacare is worst for wild steelhead than brats.

Or how about ANY science.

I don't see WFC providing much scientific basis for their onslaught of lawsuits.

The recent WFC lawsuits are about complying with the law. WDFW didn't. It allows WFC to get what it wants without having to debate the science. As long as WDFW foregoes legal compliance they'll keep losing in court; even if science is on their side.

Another interesting thread to read through I am not sure what it is about. I thought it might be related to wild steelhead survival but I think it may be more about who gets the last one. Three of the 4 H’s, habitat, harvest, and hatcheries, are a big part of the discussion. Science, management, and law are a part of the discussion. I think its is important to realize that management operates in a framework of laws, laws enacted by politicians, hopefully representing the public and not some special interest. Science is the attempt to understand the physical and natural world. The public, lawmakers, and management can embrace science that supports their beliefs, can ignore science that conflicts with what they want, even suppress what might be deemed dangerous, and on occasion change to accept a scientific reality.

Salmo g. posted a good example of the above from the current issue of the Osprey. The thesis is “The basic step to recovery is GET RID OF HATCHERY STEELHEAD. PERIOD.” The arguments to support the thesis are a hodgepodge of bits of science, of opinion, and wistful conjecture. I am not convinced that the argument supports the thesis. A better article that appeared in the same issue of the Osprey is by Elizabeth Daly, “Wild Steelhead Survive Better than Hatchery Fish in Marine Environment”. I am not going to post the article but a summary of what it contains can be found in the link below. Look at the first abstract in Session Five - Climate Change And Ocean Ecology of Steelhead. For those who believe there is little science related to steelhead explore this link and learn.

Steelhead Science

If it were possible to eliminate hatcheries, eliminate harvest (would follow if hatcheries were gone), restore freshwater habitat to what is was 100 years ago, and even get rid of dams I doubt that there woulds be a dramatic increase in wild steelhead populations. Habitat is the problem, for anadromous species habitat includes the marine environment. For salmon, steelhead and chinook in particular, the marine component of their life history is a critical stage. Salmon deposit a lot of eggs in the gravel, 1000’s per female, to insure that enough adults return to maintain the population. Only a small number of those eggs make it to the marine environment as smolts. The majority of their growth and maturation take place in the marine environment. Steelhead are unique among Pacific salmon in that they don’t stay in the coastal zone for an extended period of time. That is a significant point in the Daly article mentioned above. In the many years of sampling steelhead smolts leaving the Columbia River were at the western boundary of the sample zone in 10 days or less. Steelhead are resident in the marine environment, from one up to four years, in the Gulf of Alaska and the Eastern Pacific and during that time there is always some ongoing mortality. Ocean sampling has demonstrated that steelhead are only found in a narrow range of sea surface temperatures (SST). There is a southern high temperature limit and a northern low temperature limit. This narrow band of SST’s suitable for steelhead extends across the North Pacific. With climate change this band will shift North. SST measurements show this is happening and models predict how it will change. A quick look at a globe or a map shows that as the southern thermal boundary moves North the suitable ocean habitat for steelhead shrinks. One model predicts that by the end of the century ocean steelhead habitat will shrink by 36%. Look at the second presentation in Session Five in the link above.

Habitat loss due to thermal consideration is only part of the problem. Climate change, ocean acidification, and pollution all play a role. Not just steelhead are impacted, the entire marine ecosystem is changing. Temperature and ocean acidification is changing the food chain, pollutants are getting into the food chain at every level, and warm water predator species are moving North. With reduced habitat area, alterations in the food web, increased predators, and competition with other highly abundant salmon species the outlook for Northwest steelhead is bleak. It is the science we don’t want to know but it is in front of us.

Whoa WN1A, when you give out homework you don't mess around!

I'm not really comfortable picking one tidbit of your great post out to examine but it is something that has been very confusing for me and difficult to sort through both sides of the issue to find what the truth is. I respect Cliff Mass for giving an unbiased scientific based view of what is happening with climate change. This one article on ocean acidification has been a big question mark for me.

http://cliffmass.blogspot.com/2014/09/epa-takes-on-oysteracidification.html

I would be very interested in your insight, Thanks

I am not sure that I can offer much insight. I have seen the Cliff Mass oyster blog. He is using information from the EPA and the Washington Department of Ecology. As I wrote in the first paragraph of my post agencies can always find science that supports their goals. I am in no position to say he is right or wrong about oysters but I can say that by down playing the ocean acidification problem he is ignoring a large body of scientific work. If Breezer thought my first link was heavy duty homework let me add a great deal more with the link below. These are some of the presentations at the recently concluded PICES (North Pacific Marine Science Organization) annual meeting in Yeosu, Korea. Look at session 7- day 2, the last presentation by Nina Bednarsek. She works at PMEL in Seattle. The presentation outlines some of the ocean acidification problems off our coast.

Ocean Science


As Bob Dylan points out in SUBTERRANEAN HOMESICK BLUES, "you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows”. Not so easy though with ocean acidification, maybe an atmospheric scientist should leave discussions of ocean acidification to the oceanography experts.

I found that blog to be an aberration from the usual right on Cliff Mass assessment of the effects of carbon emissions.
Thanks for bringing so much clarity to these complex issues.

Keta,

Your post got me a bit more interested in other reactions to the Cliff Mass blog. A bit of searching turned up this Craig Welch reply to the critique of his story.

SEA CHANGE

I would add that this is all important background info to understanding the topic of this thread.