Carcassman has touched on an important issue that has a huge role in this and other habitat type discussions. As we should know by now when discussion the issues with our salmonids and ESA listings the focus is on the 4 "Hs". For the following discussion I'm going to distill it down to harvest and habitat looking at the ESA listed Puget Sound Chinook.

Since the time of the ESA listing of PS Chinook the fishing impacts on key stocks have been reduced approximately 50%. Under the co-manager PS Chinook fisheries management plan discrete impacts levels were determined for each of the listed stocks. The yard stick used to measure whether those impact levels were acceptable was would those levels/rate represent a appreciate risk of stock extinction a hundred years in the future.

A couple key assumptions in those assessments were the co-managers assumed that current poor marine survival would continue and that there would be no net lost in the habitat supporting those fish. It should be pretty clear to all that on the whole that last assumption is not being met. Depending on the river basin being discussed
habitat loss has reduced individual basins to produce Chinook to levels that 50 to 95% of historic levels with the average being in the 20% range. In other words on most basins there isn't room for additional habitat lost.

Unfortunately for the recreational gold miners it has long the case that as society when forced to make tough choices we focus on the lowest hanging fruit and ideally modifying that activity would effect only a small group or those without much influence. The American way!

The sobering news is that if the declining trend of habitat lost is not reversed keeping the listed fish from going extinct will require reducing population impacts from the other "Hs". Either directly or indirectly reducing those impacts will mean less fishing. Which really means less non-treaty fishing!

For the anglers on reading this the question is whether we are willing to support decreasing adverse habitat impacts on our fish resource or willing to accept the fact that we are likely to be the last generation to enjoy the steelhead and salmon fishing opportunities we have today?

Something to consider. Back to your original programing.

Curt