Here's the summary page and a link to the WDFW staff presentation that will be made tomorrow morning to the Commission on the Puget Sound Chinook Resource Management Plan.

The presentation will start at 10 a.m.



Summary Sheet Meeting dates: January 17-18, 2020

Agenda item: Puget Sound Chinook Resource Management Plan

Presenter(s):Ron Warren, Phil Anderson, Mike Grossmann, Kyle Adicks

Background summary: The co-managers have been working with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) since 2015 to develop a resource management plan (RMP) for Puget Sound salmon fisheries impacting ESA-listed Chinook salmon, and potentially impacting other listed species such as Southern Resident Killer Whales. The RMP addresses the criteria established in Limit 6 of the federal 4(d) rule and, if approved by NMFS, would allow fisheries to proceed under long-term ESA-coverage. The RMP is nearing completion and submission must occur in early 2020 to allow NMFS to complete review prior to the 2021 fishing season. The Commission has delegated to the Director the authority to enter into co-management agreements such as the RMP. This briefing will provide an overview of the conservation and legal environment in which the RMP was developed, summarize the major elements of the RMP, describe the public comment and review process that will likely be conducted by NOAA Fisheries, and review the WDFW communication plan.

Staff recommendation: Not applicable – briefing only.

Policy issue(s) and expected outcome: Not applicable – briefing only.

Fiscal impacts of agency implementation: Not applicable – briefing only.

Public involvement process used and what you learned: WDFW has participated in numerous formal and informal meetings with recreational anglers, commercial fishers, and representatives of multiple organizations. Concerns exist that the RMP will further restrict fisheries and, conversely, that the proposed fishing levels are inconsistent with the conservation and recovery of Puget Sound Chinook salmon and Southern Resident Killer Whales. Broad agreement exists that enhanced habitat protection and restoration funding are essential to the future of Puget Sound Chinook and fisheries.

Action requested and/or proposed next steps: Not applicable – briefing only.

Draft motion language: Not applicable – briefing only.

Post decision communications plan: Not applicable – briefing only.


https://wdfw.wa.gov/sites/default/files/2020-01/13_fwc_-_pscrmp_jan_2020_final.pdf

Senior staff pitching it hard... Grossman Anderson Addicks and Warren presented a very sobering picture of just how bad things are.

Puget Sound chinook populations after 20yrs of active “management” on the ESA list are at 72% of the levels that precipitated the original listing in the first place.

Yeah.... we suck THAT bad!

NMTA exec fears that under the RMP, mark selective fisheries in Puget Sound are in jeopardy

PSA exec highlights that further fishery reductions alone CANNOT possibly recover PS chinook.

Pat Patillo reiterates state managed fisheries have already reduced wild exploitation by 80%..... more restrictions unlikely to be helpful. Need to level the playing the field at NOF which has become too dysfunctional.

Obviously, either reductions in fisheries have not been enough as the fish continue to decline or all the money spent to date on habitat is wasted as that has not resulted in improvements.

Until the runs IMPROVE you are not doing enough. Or, extinction is the choice in which case we should just accept that and move on.

I think our good buddies at WFC have filed suit against NOAA regarding the lack of progress on restoring SRKWs and PS Chinook. WDFW may be really pushing this Plan to gain a few more years where either the whales go extinct or the Plan fails and we draft a new one to keep fisheries going.

You can't solve this problem by fisheries reductions in areas where a minority of the fish are caught. Cuts in AK and BC will be necessary to make a difference, too bad the politics will never let that happen. . .

Sobering indeed! The stock status info presented in the RMP presentation is the bleakest fisheries report I think I've ever seen. Fascinating that NMFS can come up with a Recovery Exploitation Rate (RER) of 22% for Stillaguamish Chinook, a population known to be unable to replace itself even in the absence of any fishing, coastwide. Similar for mid-HC Chinook. And these are the stocks typically controlling Puget Sound - and now PS tributaries as well - recreational fishing. Phil Anderson indicated he finds some optimism in the report, which makes me think he's still wearing the rose colored glasses. For me, the glaring news is that PS wild Chinook are circling the drain - maybe not Skagit, at least not as soon.

I think I'm a conservationist first and angler second. But when restricting fishing cannot possibly recover a salmon population, managers must look at other alternatives if recovery is truly the desired outcome. Restricting fishing will not and cannot recover Stilly Chinook or mid-HC Chinook. I've posted quite a bit about Stilly Chinook previously. Mid-HC Chinook should be removed from the list of Chinook stocks in the PS ESU. We were making some noise about this at NMFS 5 or more years ago. The logical reason for removal is because Chinook spawners in mid-HC tributaries (Dose, Duck, Hamma) are George Adams hatchery strays, or the uncommon offspring of GA strays. That means they are part of the ubiquitous Green River hatchery Chinook. What fish biologist would be surprised to learn that GR hatchery Chinook are mal-adapted to natural reproduciton on eastern OP tributaries? But, you say, where are the native wild mid-HC Chinook? They were wiped out by fishing by the end of the 1960s when HC was managed for wipe-out commercial fishing on hatchery Chinook, coho, and chum salmon. WDFW can crank the handle on the machine that is supposed to recover wild Chinook in the mid-HC tribs out of GR hatchery Chinook for decades, but that doesn't mean it will happen. If one wants to win the war, one shouldn't expend too many resources on a losing battle.

And of course, closing gamefish seasons (summer steelhead & sea run cutthroat, mainly CNR fly fishing) on the Stilly won't recover a single damn Chinook either. WDFW and the Tribe should be on the same side of the table persuading NMFS, by strong arm if necessary, to forget about any near term recovery of wild Stilly Chinook and focus on conservation hatchery measures to keep the stock in existence for some future time, likely far in the future if ever, working on habitat recovery meanwhile. Taking off the rose colored glasses would mean using Californial condor-like conservation measures for an indefinite period of time.

On a positive note, it appeared that some staff and Commissioners recognize that continuing to close or restrict recreational angling isn't going to recover any of the ESA-listed populations. They all appear to feel that the annual piggy-backing on the BIA permit after NOF is not a sustainable course of action. They haven't figured out the solution yet, but at least I got the feeling that they are now looking for one. That's a partial relief. I say partial because they aren't saying they won't close gamefish seasons under the pretext of Chinook conservation this year or next, even though everyone in the room now seems to understand such closures won't do a damn thing to conserve the threatened Chinook. Clearly we still have a ways to go.

Just for a clarification, when you say "restricting fishing will not and cannot recover..." do you mean all fisheries or just recreational fishing?

The fishery restrictions that are needed are beyond the control of WDFW; AK and BC. It's not just the salmon fishing. It is the pink and chum hatchery releases, it is the fisheries on food fish and anything lower in the food chain. It is not having fisheries on pinnipeds.

And, it is the inability to restore habitat in large enough chunks and then PUT FISH INTO IT.

Recovery is simply too societally and politically expensive. So, we put the sports on the beach.

Fishing restriction or even fishing elimination are not likely to recover PS Chinook. The current recovery paradigm is broken and will not achieve recovery. The only remaining question is whether after the next 5 year status review due in 2021 or the 2026 review the ESA status of PS Chinook will be upgraded from threatened to endangered.

Perhaps there is no better indication of the habitat recovery failure than the Stillaguamish summer Chinook. For the 20 year period (1990 to 2009) the average escapement (NOR and wild brood stock HOR) was 1,500 spawners. Those spawners on produced on the average only 933s NOR the next generation; less than 2 recruits for every spawners. From memory I think there were only 3 years that recruits/spawner exceeded 1.0 with the largest about 1.25 recruits per spawner. Keep in mind since that 20 period of data the Oso slide has happen further degrading the spawning habitats.

Slide 19 (Mid-Hood Canal) may be the most alarming in regards to future marine water mixed stock fisheries. While it appears that still is not co-manager/NMFS on allowable exploitation rates the Slide says NMFS recommended rate is 5%. Most years a 12% mid-Hood Canal has been the most constrain stock. If that nearly 60% reduction in allowable exploitation were to come to past it will be the death nail several mixed stock fisheries.

Depressing but not unexpected news.

Curt

Even more SHOCKING to me is the RER (recovery exploitation rate) of 22% assigned to Stillaguamish.

You've got a critically endangered run of chinook, where each generation of adult spawners is incapable of replacing itself.... and the brain-trust believes that killing more than one in five of those struggling recruits is the path to recovery?

YGTBFKM, right?

If I read Curt right, Stilly fish have an R/S less than 1. The fisheries can't be reduced any more, as this won't increase the R/S to above 1.0 . The habitat restoration hasn't worked, as the R/S and total run continue downward.

The run, then, by the best measures we have, extinct. Just admit it and move on. We have had 20+ years of doing the "Best Science" to have the fish runs decline by 30%. They're extinct.

C'man, yes wild Stilly Chinook are functionally extinct. As one of those Pollyanna optimists I'm not ready to throw in the towel. First, let me say, they are awesome Chinook, on parr with Skagit summer Chinook, just far less numerous. I want to try to preserve the stock with aggressive conservation hatchery measures, up to and including captive broodstock. I think it's worth a try. If it fails, then we can move on, confident we did all that was humanly possible in our time.

{/quote}Slide 19 (Mid-Hood Canal) may be the most alarming in regards to future marine water mixed stock fisheries. While it appears that still is not co-manager/NMFS on allowable exploitation rates the Slide says NMFS recommended rate is 5%. Most years a 12% mid-Hood Canal has been the most constrain stock. If that nearly 60% reduction in allowable exploitation were to come to past it will be the death nail several mixed stock fisheries.

Depressing but not unexpected news.

Curt [/quote]


I am pretty sure the 12% rate used for recent management is a ER rate ceiling in preterminal So. US fisheries. THe NMFS rate of 5% is in all fisheries. The December 2017 PS Harvest Plan shows that In recent years the ER in AK and BC fisheries was approximately equal to the So. US fishing rate. So strict compliance to a 5% ceiling rate would require essentially shutting down all US fisheries which isn't going to happen.

darth baiter -

A good catch on a very important detail. I have to wonder how NMFS squares that 5% ceiling rate with the recent US/Canada salmon treaty; that is how would that agreement meet ESA requirements?

I agree there will be some adjustment to that ceiling rate that will be driven at least as much by "political" considerations as biological. That said it is hard to imagine that we will not see some downward adjusted to the critical rate SUS PT 12% rate. The 2020 NOF process is going to be interesting with some very tough decisions required.

Curt

Salmo g-
I agree that historically the Stillaguamish summer Chinook are were indeed a special fish. Have seen fish in excess of 50# and recently the tribal staff reported stilling seen some fish in excess of 40#. Fish that would be ideal forage for the SRKWs.

There has been a wild Chinook brood stock program where annually fish are captured in the North Fork and transported to a tribal hatchery facility for at least 35 years. It is likely that without that program those Chinook would indeed be functionally extinct. In the recent decade of available information (2009 to 2018) the natural spawning summer Chinook have been more or less equally divided between HORs (401/yr) and NORs (405/yr). Since the beginning of that brood stock program its contribution to the natural spawning population has been increasing.

The excessive sediment loading and stream bed instability is clearly a major factor limiting Stillaguamish Chinook. You will appreciate the based on smolt trap information the Stillaguamish Chinook egg deposited to migrant survival is roughly 25% of that of the Skagit (average of 4% compared to 16%.

Curt

The easiest way to remove that bedlam sediment, as has been demonstrated on the Fraser, Kennedy Creek, and S Paririe Creek, is to flood the watershed with pink and chum. The amount of sediment that spawning salmon transport downstream is tremendous. Obviously, we are having issues with excessive pink and chum in N Pacific (thanks to the AK hatchery programs) but if sediment is such an issue, let the fish move it out. If Chinook are that important, stop killing the pink and chum.

Thanks for that tidbit Curt. 4% egg to migrant simply cannot replace itself. I think that corroborates my opinion for focusing on salvaging Stilly Chinook with a complete conservation hatchery program. The sooner the agencies focus on that and off of trying to solve the problem with fishing restrictions, the better.

After posting yesterday I thought about the PS Chinook genetic profiles. If my memory serves, Stilly Chinook are the closest genetic link to Skagit summers in PS. Makes sense, given that the Stilly is right next door to the Skagit.

C'man, spawning salmon are good gravel cleaners, but I don't think they are up to the task of cleaning the NF Stilly. I large hunk of Mt Higgans fell into the river almost 6 years ago, and similar, although smaller, slides have occurred over the past couple centuries. Movement of that quantity of sediment requires flows equal to the 2-year flood or greater many, many times to leave a channel bed of clean gravel. This is bigger than the DeForest Creek slide that occurred on Deer Creek back in the mid-80s. It took years to move that material out, and it added a lot of new real estate in the upper end of Port Susan. And not killing so many pink and chum is a good idea for a whole lot of ecological reasons.

I've got pictures of SPC pinks digging though 6+" of silt just to hit gravel. It would take time, but there really aren't other options. And, the overall ecological benefits are there, too. Since managers won't put them on the grounds for ecological benefits maybe they would do it for Chinook recovery; especially if they could keep Chinook fishing.


I understand that, prior to the eruption of Granite Peak 5 or 6K years ago that the Skagit exited through the Stilly. The massive lahar moved the Sauk and Suiattle into the Skagit so the fact that stocks are rather close should not be surprising.

Looking back at the geologic history of PS since the last glaciation shows a lot of movement of rivers between major watersheds.