Don’t remember just which meeting CM but do remember the statement. I will share this through. My team had one of the best volunteers I have ever seen. He did many things administratively and then set about fencing off the stream that ran through his property. Followed by getting his neighbors to do the same and this was quality work absolutely as good as it gets. Then late one night he calls with a question. It seems he was at a meeting of some sorts with a tribal bio speaking. His question was if all the work done to help the habitat and this resulted in 500 more spawners in his creek does mean more fish in the upper basin?

I was a bit confused by his question as he kept coming back to the same point, the escapement goal. Then the light bulb came on. I replied in a pure theoretical exercise if after harvest his creek gets 500 spawners where only 50 were there prior then other streams in the basin would have 450 harvested as the escapement goal is the baseline. So he said all their work would not get more fish back in the basin as a whole but any gains go for harvest? Correct was my reply followed by his response “I quit” which he did.

You see guys the backside of habitat restoration is any gains will not go to the natural order but rather harvest. When you see statements promoting salmon restoration it is about restoring harvest levels to prior years, it is not about restoring any salmon above the escapement goal.

After that late night call from JM I never encouraged folks to do habitat restoration. I still feel it is one of the most rewarding things one can do to help fish as long as you realize any gains in natural production are going into harvest not natural production. Some call it the great habitat scam! I am not sure I buy into that one but there is one hell of a lot of dishonesty and PC BS around habitat restoration, purpose, and outcome.

Add to it that nearly half of Grays Harbor Chinook are taken in Alaska and British Columbia before they reach the harbor any habitat work for Chinook in the Chehalis Basin is a fool’s errand. Until you have harvest reform anything citizens do will do little for fish.