Met'lheadMatt,

It looks like you're over-looking a critical aspect of fish management in WA and how the ecosystem works. First, as the prospective run size increases above the spawning escapement goal, then the harvest goal increases, not in proportion, but by whatever number of fish are forecast greater than the escapement goal. Fish over and above that number (I think it's 8,000 for the Quilayute system, for example) are defined as surplus production. Surplus production is available for harvest, and so long as the state and tribal co-managers are wed to the MSH/MSY management mantra, there will be no increase in the number of natural spawners, except by coincidence.

Second, the aquatic ecosystem has finite production potential. A spawning escapement goal intended to maximize production won't produce more fish by having more spawners hit the gravel. The habitat will be fully seeded, and the maximum number of smolts will be produced. The escapement goal under MSH/MSY is lower, because the maximum number of harvestable fish always occurs at lower overall productivity than the maximum, at which point the conversation drifts a bit.

A third point is that with native broodstock programs, and a majority of the treaty tribes making the policy/science decision that hatchery and wild fish are equal means there is no discounting of productivity of hatchery fish spawning in the natural environment by those tribes.

Sg