Yep. But maybe there is recipe for cormorant under glass? I can't imagine eating a fish eating bird. Yuck!

Kill the predator s and distribute the carcasses in the upper watersheds.

👆 Now there is. A thought! 🤔

I used to hunt various sea ducks. Breasted them out, brined the breasts in a "fish (salmon) brine" and smoked them in the Little Chief. Were very popular. They taste like fish, treat them like fish. I know that on the East Coast, especially New England, that sea duck hunting (Eiders, Scoters, etc.) is popular and they probably have good recipes.

You guys ever read any of Pat Neal's columns (fishing guide out in Oil City) in the Port Angeles paper? He is really critical of the amount of money that is spent on habitat work on the coastal OP rivers. I think his point is that all that work and money haven't resulted in an increase in returning fish. And that those resources would be better used to replicate the hatchery/broodstock efforts of the past.

So what do you think? Does he have a point? Or would hatchery dollars also be down the drain because the SAR is abysmal anyway?

I'm not trying to attack him or his argument, just curious what others think of it.

They're both wrong. The habitat won't recover until massive, ecosystem levels of salmon escapement occur annually. The 1-2 kg/sq m for each species of salmon will significantly raise the productivity of the streams. The massive number of spawners will clean the gravel, thereby increasing egg-fry survival.

I do support, though, that when habitat projects are proposed an funded, and this includes dam rivals, barrier removals and such, that they are accompanied by a minimum defined benefit. For example, take out X dam in 10 years there will be a Chinook, B coho, and C chum spawning above the dam site. If those numbers aren't met at 10 years, the proponents pay the funders 25% of the cost of the project. Similar goalposts are set every succeeding 5 years (all set before the project starts) with a 25% payback until either we get the benefits or the project is paid back. Consequences.

Agreed with everything but the last part.

Why would anyone want to make habitat restoration PUNITIVE? Makes NO SENSE.

What does make sense is that a habitat project (esp an access/fish passage project) once approved, should have a well defined benefit attached to its completion.

Example: The habitat folks take out barrier X freeing up more habitat for Y number of coho... and then hang the obligation of increasing the escapement by Y coho on the harvest managers.

This is the path to meaningful recovery.

Right now we do these multi-million dollar habitat projects to open up blockages for the fish to gain access to new spawning/rearing habitats, or improve degraded habitats with LWD to make them better for rearing juveniles.... but make ZERO provision for more fish to use the new/improved habitat. The often-ancient escapement goal remains the same despite the increased capacity for natural production.

Any increases in production are just snarfed up by the harvesters when the fish come back home, resulting in NO NET GAIN for that particular reach of spawning or rearing habitat.

ALL pain with no gain is simply unfair to the locals shouldering the burden of conservation. Say for example the 14 million dollar Wildcat Creek bridge project... to get more salmon up that trib. Lets say completing it should have opened up access to allow an additional 250 coho. The escapement goal should immediately be raised by 250 fish, and the harvest folks would have to hold up their end to make sure the creek gets its 250 coho.

But no... the e-goal was NOT adjusted.... which really beg the question, "What was the point of doing the project in the first place?"

My point is that habitat projects need to be documented to produce fish. Look at all the hoo-ha for removing Snake Rover dams and saving SRKWs, Fine, take out the dams but is 10 years there better be X more SRKWs. Otherwise, we will continually use "Save the warm and fuzzies" to justify projects, pay for the projects, and get nothing. I want to see lots more salmon, lots more SRKWs, and we aren't doing that because there is nobody holding the managers' feet top the fire to actually accomplish recovery.

From what I have seen "habitat restoration" seldom have a cost benefit ratio but rather more about perception than results. The cost of the Wildcat bridges will never pencil out as a gain for the fish, frankly I am sure that that money could have been spent on blockages with much more return ( fish ) on investment. Another the monies spent on Wynoochee habitat this past summer, is it a good thing? Absolutely but will it result in a healthier river, it cannot hurt but it is doubtful any quantifiable gain will result.

Restore seems to mean any gains will go to restoring harvest not healthy ecosystems. We need to preserve good habitat, address and limit over harvest which must include the marine fisheries, then target streams where recovery is possible. What we have now is PC BS of smoke and mirrors on habitat restoration as the fish continue to suffer.

In most cases, attaching an increment of numbers of species X produced to a particular habitat project is pure dart board stuff. Opening up blocked habitat is probably the easiest and that isn't all that easy because you dont know the capacity of the unblocked habitat to produce more fish. Expecting the numbers to be achieved in 10 years (2, may be 3 generations) is way too optimistic.

I am not suggesting the whole recovery in a decade. I want to see some significant improvement rather than, as Rivrguy suggests, simply the perception of improvement.

Similar to what you are saying, eyeFISH, there should definitely be a written out and agreed upon GOAL when commencing these projects.

On a recent planting on a Hood Canal stream where a culvert was replaced with a small bridge, I was doing a quick mental talley of the number of Chum carcasses in that one stretch of creek above and below the new bridge. While anecdotal, a family friend of mine who owns property a couple river miles above the new bridge mentioned this was the most Chum and Coho he’d seen on his creekside property in years. Apparently he remembers hundreds of spawning fish up through the 90s, but recently it’s only been a couple pairs, with none some years. While this was a strong year across the northwest, this was more than just a 10-30% jump.

I asked one of the Bios working the planting if he knew of any efforts by the organization or WDFW to do redd or outmigration counts. To my surprise, (and he could have just been unaware,) he said no.

Not sure how long we can continue doing these multimillion dollar fixes without clear evidence that they’re making a difference.

All of these projects help... but you need to let the fish thru in order for them to bear fruit.

So far the harvest managers are doing NOTHING to allow that to happen.

They just go about business as usual for maximum kill and keep crafting seasons to snarf up any of the additional productivity.

The smallest gesture they can make is an incremental increase in the spawner goal each time one of these projects is completed. If they won't even make the commitment to try, what's the point in doing ANY habitat projects?

That's my point, Doc. We spend the money, we should see fish, or whales, or whatever it is we're "saving"

Thing is this, you get rid of a blockage and fish will utilize almost immediately but they are fish already existing in the available habitat. So they use the newly available habitat, both juveniles and adults, and will prosper to some degree with a higher survival but it does not mean substantial numbers of additional adults because you have to STOP KILLING THE ADULTS to get more spawners. Habitat work is the thing most beneficial to fish but it has to be linked with super glue to harvest reform. If that does not happen it is simply a very expensive feel good exercise in futility.

Doc has it right !

Removing dams would be beneficial for the fish in high water. As everyone knows when the rain hits those fish go straight up, dams do not help in this instance. I can only imagine an undamned Columbia in flood stage in the middle of salmon season. Fish would be going up to bc in a week or less.

Edited for grammar/punctuation... and also for more exposure so it sticks. Thanks for the support, Rivrguy.

The last few years I worked my boss was doing a lot of culvert work to limit siltation and blockages. The one than stands out in my memory was on a tributary of Vesta Creek. It was the usual plunge pool thing on the culvert outlet and while not a major fish habitat issue it certainly was a blockage for about any aquatic species. So in goes the new culvert with all the bells and whistles and the work was simply excellent. If I recall correctly after the work had been completed he went back to take pictures and as luck would have it I was working near by. The long and short of it was he was amazed as in the creek was a parade of crawdads headed right through the culvert up stream to a wetland right along with fish ranging from bullheads to fry of some sort. This is not unusual I am told and I have seen the same thing on culvert repairs on other streams.

One should keep in mind that creeks and rivers are the home for many creatures that utilize them and not necessarily only fish. It is a web of life that creates and maintains a streams health be it a large stream or small stream. You need an healthy environment for salmonids to spawn in and utilize for rearing. Perfect environment no adults means no adults. Adults with vastly depleted or limited access to spawning and rearing areas means few adults. The fishes needs are completely dependent on the quality off their environment which is interlocked with a vast variety of aquatic life that all contribute to a healthy stream.

I will hop off the stump now.

Spot on Rivrguy. We do tend to be so salmon-centric as if that was the only fish out there. Sculpins, at least some species here in the PNW, migrate downstream to spawn, often in the estuary, and then head back up. A fall/blockage of a couple of inches can block the return of juveniles. There are more than a few records were permanent fish traps, like I worked on, essentially wiped out the stream's sculpins in a few years.

Working on traps, especially those that catch the small beasties, is a real eye-opener as to what is moving up and down a stream and just how many there are.

After a reread of my post this. Doc's thoughts on harvest are right on and in many ways most important. Salmon need access to good habitat to prosper and what many miss is in the PNW good habitat needs salmon! They by the act of returning and dying are the fertilizer that powers and ecosystem that a huge number of creatures depend on. I am reminded what Harry Senn once taught me by a simple question. What is the most valuable fish to a watershed ? I said Coho and nope not a chance! It is the lowly Chum that takes almost nothing from the watershed and by returning and spawning and dying provide nutrients on a scale no other can match !

The salmon also clean the gravel. The (former) large sockeye escapements in the Fraser were responsible for more than half the sediment movement. We know that increased fines decreases egg-fry survival. We know salmon spawning removes them. What else are we doing to clean the gravel? Hoping to will clean itself?