Off topic, but to follow up on WN1A's above post regarding the import of the upcoming Pacific Salmon Treaty negotiations on Puget Sound Chinook and salmon fisheries in the Sound, NOAA recently released an ESA 5-year status review which included an assessment of Puget Sound Chinook. The assessment indicates that exploitation rates on most Puget Sound Chinook stocks have increased since the 1990s and that the primary cause of this is Canadian interceptions of Puget Sound Chinook off the West Coast of Vancouver Island. NOAA's review notes that Canadian fisheries managers changed the temporal pattern of their fishing to avoid WCVI stocks, which resulted in increased impacts on Puget Sound stocks. (A notable exception to this pattern is the North Puget Sound region stocks that migrate through the Strait of Georgia as opposed to along the WCVI.) See p. 239 of STATUS REVIEW UPDATE FOR
PACIFIC SALMON AND STEELHEAD LISTED UNDER THE ENDANGERED
SPECIES ACT: PACIFIC NORTHWEST, December 21, 2016, NORTHWEST FISHERIES SCIENCE CENTER. http://www.westcoast.fisheries.noaa.gov/.../2016_nwfsc.pdf

The status review does not paint a pretty picture regarding the recovery status of Puget Sound Chinook:

"Most populations are also consistently below the spawner-recruit levels identified [ ] as consistent with recovery. Across the ESU, most populations have declined in abundance since the last status review in 2011, and indeed, this decline has been persistent over the past 7 to 10 years. Productivity remains low in most populations. Hatchery-origin spawners are present in high fractions in most populations outside the Skagit watershed, and in many watersheds the fraction of spawner abundances that are natural-origin have declined over time. . . The expected benefits [from habitat restoration efforts] will take years or decades to produce significant improvement in natural population viability parameters." Page 244.

As frustrating as this year's North of Falcon process has been for those involved and those, like myself, who are mostly watching from outside (although I did attend one meeting and submit written comments), if poor ocean conditions in 2014 and 2015 affected chinook stocks in a similar manner to coho stocks, the next few years could be even more difficult.