I think it's going to take more than the notice of intent. NMFS relies heavily on regional advisory councils for regulatory purposes. And the council is not populated with members of the "Friends of Killer Whales." The members are from the commercial fishing industry, and if the example of the pollock fishery impacting ESA listed Pribiloff fur seals is any indication, it will take a ruling in favor of SRKW over SEAK salmon fishing to make a change.

The Courts may be our only hope as the managers/co-managers/advisors certainly aren't.

Although I may not be pessimistic, I shouldn’t be naïve either…….

Salmo g is correct. It’s gonna take more than a 60-day NOI to get the necessary conservation measures in place for SRKW's.

Another example is the Federal Columbia River dams. It took several adverse ESA rulings from the Oregon District Court (Judge Redden) to get enough spill to protect juvenile salmon. Plus, NMFS never really proposed the levels of spill we currently have. They were court-ordered, thanks to Judge Redden.

So even now, the battle isn’t finished.

The thing with the whales is that they are documented to h--- and back. They have given them names so it is not I guess or maybe when one dies it is known and which one it is. The blame on Columbia salmon and steelhead works due to politics and frankly we need electricity and most prefer the light switch to coal oil lamps and stoves. This is one of the few times that there is no place to hide for anyone including the courts. Going to be interesting but I have a fiver on WFC just for those reasons.

Lost another one. A very productive male. The whales, and salmon by extension, won't be saved until Greenpeace, Sea Shepherd, and the like weigh in. Even then, you see Japan keep whaling. It will be the general public, that likes charismatic megafauna, that will do it.

It will be like the wolf restoration. The general public will drive it and the Courts will support it. And, by extension, the fishermen will all be grouped as opponents because we would rather kill salmon than have whales.

As I mentioned in a different thread, NMFS needs to take action immediately if they want SRKW's to survive much longer. Getting more $$'s for hatchery production is great but it won't be quick, cheap or easy.

Conversely, they can reduce harvest almost immediately. And they can increase productivity by allowing hatchery adults to access the spawning grounds rather than taking them out via blocking weirs (e.g., Kalama River).

Reducing harvest is quick and easy, but if you're one of those SE AK trollers, it won't be cheap.

Not only does Alaska low hole us on the fishing side, they low hole us on the hatchery side. Alaska dumps about 1.8 billion fish a year (mostly chum and pinks) into the ocean and those fish compete directly with wild and hatchery fish from elsewhere for the same food sources in the N. Pacific. When hatchery plants from Russia, Korea and Japan are included, about 5B hatchery plants are added each year to the feeding grounds.

Since the early 1970's, the global salmon catch has been nearly perfectly correlated with the total number of hatchery plants (with a few years delay) and since about the early 1990's the global salmon harvest is approximately flat (800,000-1M metric tons). But the locations of harvest have shifted north (towards the locations of the greatest number of hatchery plants. From this, I can only conclude that there is very little we can do down south to recover our fisheries UNLESS we can reduce the rate of interception and increase our relative percentage of hatchery plants (either more from us or less from elsewhere or a combination of the two).

There is abundant evidence regarding the impact of pink salmon populations on the population of other salmon species. For just one example - see - https://krsa.com/pink-salmon-a-keystone-predator-in-the-north-pacific-salmon-food-chain/.
Also, I note that the abundance of killer whales off of Alaska has increased while the SRKW population has decreased. This is also consistent with a shift in salmon population to the north.

I couldn't figure out how to get an image of the data uploaded but the link below will get you there.
[img:center]https://photos.app.goo.gl/FdXbijCEfv6vNUhC9[/img]

WA has cut its hatchery production by almost 50% since 1985. In a broad sense, those cuts also track the decline in the SRKW population, the decline of natural origin spawners, and the reduction in harvest opportunities for all parties.

We cannot forget, too, the impacts of predation by fish, birds, and pinnipeds on both the out-migrants and returning adults.

Lastly, what have been the impacts of the mixing of salmon stocks by old hatchery practices?

One example is the out of basin movement of over 40 million Chinook eggs from the Green River hatchery between 1980 and 1987 to 12 different river basins in Puget Sound. In total, statewide, WDF transferred over 277 million eggs out of basin in those years. Roughly 180 million were distributed in Puget Sound, 75 million in the Columbia, and 16 million in the coastal rivers. These numbers do not include tribal, federal, or cooperative hatcheries.

From the 2006 NOAA Technical Memorandum NMFS-NWFSC-78 titled “Independent Populations of Chinook Salmon in Puget Sound”, they say for the Stillaguamish (North and South Forks) that the “Early run diversity form is extinct; not clear whether this form represented an historically independent population” and for the main stem they say “Historical and current status are unknown; no evidence that this form represented an historically independent population”. For Mid-Hood Canal they say the late run “Historical diversity in late run is no longer extant” and for the early run “Early run diversity form is extinct”.

In a different time frame, 1952 to 1973, WDF planted 250K spring Chinook and 22.4 million fall Chinook in the Stillaguamish between 1952 and 1973. The point source for those fish isn’t known.From the same stocking report, the Hamma Hamma received 275K fall Chinook, the Dosewallips received 587K spring Chinook and 3.2 million fall Chinook,and the Duckabush received 1.3 million + fall Chinook. The source(s) for these fish is unknown.

Are we really saving “wild” fish or are we trying to save natural spawning populations? I ask that question because of WDF/WDG/WDFW hatchery practices that have planted billions of salmon in over 600 creeks, streams, rivers, and lakes in this state over the past 120 years. Salmon stray. They colonized the Puget Sound basin following the retreat of the glaciers. How many hatchery fish have successfully spawned over the years in their natal river basin or were successful spawners in some other river basin and not necessarily Puget Sound rivers?

Are we being unnecessarily impacted in the NOF process by Stillaguamish and mid-Hood Canal stocks that were at one time classified as not extant or extirpated/extinct.

Conceptually, are they not the same?

In my mind, a wild fish is one that has withstood the relentless selection pressures of the natural world at every life stage… from egg laid in the gravel, to free swimming fry, to outbound smolt, to foraging oceanic subadult, to returning adult spawner churning a new redd in the gravel from whence it came.

Self-sustaining production from the gravel womb of every viable salmon bearing artery in the Pacific Northwest should be the end game of recovering depleted fish populations.

Your question is a good one. I believe the answer is that instead of protecting the infinitely renewable salmon resources with which the PNW was blessed, policy folks and fish managers for the last 150 years have focused on protecting fisheries (harvest) as their primary goal... regardless of what happened to the wild fish and the places they called home. Every possible convolution has been concocted to enable the ongoing harvest to persist to the maximum extent possible. And chief among these is perpetuating the illusion of abundance thru artificial propagation. As long as society continued to see totes full of commercially-caught salmon, limits of salmon hanging from trophy racks at the dock, and creeks teeming with hatchery-produced salmon... well, "Problem? What problem?" The relentless and progressive assault on salmon habitat wrought by human encroachment could be conveniently ignored.

Even with everything we know today about salmon ecology, for every project attempting to restore habitat, there's at least at least 10 others degrading or destroying it somewhere else. In my own back yard, the last bastion of wild salmon production from entirely within Western Washington, construction of a new a dam is being actively pursued on the Chehalis River. Bottom line the enemy of wild-produced salmon is US!

It's really only been in the last 20-30 years that ESA has re-directed the focus toward the health of wild fish populations and the places they call home. And yeah, paying for the abuses of the past hurts. It hurts ALL of us.

I can sympathize with the perspective that fishing itself is NOT the highest proximate cause of ongoing depletion of PS chinook at this stage of the game, specifically as it pertains to Stillaguamish. Stopping all fishing for Stilly kings by itself cannot correct the inability of wild Stilly kings to replace themselves thru natural recruitment.

But know this... neither does continuing to kill them at whatever rate NOAA/PFMC/NOF decides is acceptable. Continuing to fish on the stock only accelerates the extinction trajectory. Dead fish don't spawn and can't contribute to recovery.... whether they die at our hands or those of Mother Nature.

Eyefish-
I certainly understand that dead fish do not spawn. What I do have a hard to understanding why is it inappropriate for those dead fish come from fishery impacts but it is ok to kill individuals of the same population through habitat degradation.

For example it seems to be ok to kill list Columbia river Chinook annually at each of dams at a more or less constant rate (same annual rates) but the fishing related mortalities are treated differently.

Or to the Stillaguamish the data seems to indicate that the potential Chinook carrying capacity of the basin has been reduced by 95% from the historic level through largely habitat loss. Yet somehow killing less than 1% of that historic abundance is not

The harsh reality is that the combination of the current recovery and fisheries management paradigms will lead to the end of mixed stock fisheries, many terminal fisheries and ultimately the extinction of many of the list populations.

Curt

Viability of wild populations is primarily predicated on good habitat. No way to get around that. While some valiant boots on the ground soldiers are fighting that battle on our behalf, society as a whole has neither the discipline nor the moral/ethical fiber to restore let alone protect functioning wild salmon habitat.

The tragic history of salmon depletion in Europe and New England obviously wasn't enough of a motivator to do the right things here on the West Coast.

When the final and definitive tale of the demise of PNW salmon is written 50 years from now, it will note that the well-being of the fish was at nearly every crossroads sacrificed for human expedience and the short-term profits to be made from exploiting them.

To boil it down to one simple sentence, this. We chose to place the resource in this state and we will choose to not stop the very actions that created the problem.

Some profound info and insight in these last several posts above. Thanks guys. I just hope our state and tribal co-managers and feds are reading, understanding, and heeding the inevitable implications.

If the characters in that new WDFW video really believe salmon can be restored and recovered, it would sure be nice to see them acting like it.

I have been in favor of significant increases in escapement for quite a while. Looking at 1-2 k/sq metre. These get laughed at around here as being way too high. Recently read about how Russia manages pink and chum wild stocks. The capacity of the stream is 1-2 SALMON per sq metre. They try to hit 50% of that as a minimum target. That is, of course, way above what I was pushing. And, they have rather large harvests and call this MSY management.

Should be noted that they probably have more intact habitat, but probably not too different from most of the OP, especially where it is in the Park.

TIME'S UP!

“Most people don't realize that over 97% of the Chinook salmon caught in the ocean off Southeast Alaska are not from Alaska, they’re actually from rivers in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon. These salmon are not Alaskan salmon, they belong to the rivers and peoples of the entire coast, as well as the killer whales and coastal ecosystems that depend on them. Data from the Pacific Salmon Commission show that only 3% of the Chinook caught in Southeast Alaskan ocean waters each year are actually from Alaskan rivers; roughly half are from the Columbia River and the remainder come from other rivers in British Columbia, Washington, and Oregon."

Curiosity or just stirring the pot a little this thought comes to mind. If our chinook show up here from June onward, during which months are they catching our fish? Would there be a possibility to restrict the Alaska seasons to allow the escapement of more of our fish?

They catch our fish EVERY month they deploy their gear. SE-AK is the PASTURE for multiple age classes of actively feeding pre-spawn adults year-round. The pressure SE-AK trollers exert on PNW bound kings is RELENTLESS!

Then you have the massive incidental harvest that is based in Alaska which kill nearly as many. Your fish burger comes with a price.

I believe the winter troll is the "dirtiest" up there, from some discussions I have seen but all will get ours.