Why does Washington manage its fish under MSY? It is proven as a failed system.

Many other states fall under the ruling of the Boldt Decision, (all states in the 9th district I believe) and they do not use MSY or do they?

Does Oregon, California, Idaho and Alaska manage their fish under MSY. I dont know about salmon but Im sure they dont manage Steelhead under MSY.

I have read that WDFW has said the Boldt Decision mandates that MSY is used as the management system. If other staes held under the Boldt Decision dont use it why can it not be changed?

Any experts out there that can enlighten me?

Rich

I would imagine your answer can be found under the Magnuon Act at: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/magact/mag1.html#s2

edit: see #104-297

(28) The term "optimum", with respect to the yield from a fishery, means the amount of fish which--

(A) will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities, and taking into account the protection of marine ecosystems;

(B) is prescribed as such on the basis of the maximum sustainable yield from the fishery, as reduced by any relevant economic, social, or ecological factor; and

(C) in the case of an overfished fishery, provides for rebuilding to a level consistent with producing the maximum sustainable yield in such fishery


Cowlitzfisherman

OK MSY, so it means Maxamim Sustainable Yield. Id say yes our fish runs should yeild the maximun sustainable economic bennifit to the local economies.

The only way to achieve this is to manage our rivers for sport fishing as that has been proven to benefit the local econemies the most.

You'll get no argument from me on that one Rich!

That is why I tried to get people into thinking about changing salmon into a sport fish instead of what it is managed as now…a food fish!
I'll bet you that most people didn't even know that this act is what is pushing WDFW to manage our fish at MSY!

When will people figure out what our problems are?


Cowlitzfisherman

Cowlitz,

MSH, isnt doing anything for us accept for push the fish runs to unhealthy levels and colapse, and deffinately is not yielding the most benefit or MSY I should say.

So what is the problem why has our state interperated MSY into MSH it definately is not what it means. MSY might have met MSH 20 or 30 years ago but not now.

It appears that congress intended it to mean the resource needs to be managed in order to yield the most benefit. MSH does not yield the most benefit.

Fish should be managed in such a way as to return the maximum nunber of self sustaining populations. Our goal should be to see that wild fish populate and seed all availaible habitats to 100%.. Then we can talk about harvest

Rob Allen,

Definately, If we managed our rivers for sport fishing which has the most economic bebefit, it would be in our best interest to alow our wild stocks to take over and rebuild.

Rich

It has always been about $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$!

The big money in the past, (commercial dollars) has always spoken the loudest and you can bet your last dollar the commercial boys used the Magnuon Act to it fullest to promote there own fishery.

Only recently with the certain species being listed under the ESA, has that begin to change. In my opinion, the problem is that the "Magnuon Act" is still being used to justify the indiscriminate taking of species, because no one has yet challenged it or how it's management is being missed used by WDFW. You got to remember that it wasn't that long ago when we were being managed under two different methods and agencies (WDG and WDF)

When it came to fish, WDF had always had the clout and powers to maintain the MSY mindset (commercial mindset). In the past, WDF overruled WDG on anything that effected salmon and there harvest. Harvest was there one and only goal, and they did it at the highest MSY possible. That's why we had so many hatcheries on river systems that really didn't need them. They needed the "water" from those rivers to run the hatcheries for the commercial fisheries. Any fish that sport fishers caught were just excess hatchery needs!

When the big merger was made, most of the top fish managers in WDF pretty much held onto there jobs, and we are still operating under many of there old mindsets and policies. We are now slowly moving away from some of there "old ways", and people (sport fishers) are finally beginning to understand what the real imbedded problems are.



Cowlitzfisherman

Cowlitz,

From what you know could a different management method be used or are we bound to MSY, or should we say MSH?

MSH is just an interpratation and a mis-interpration at that, of of MSY as far as I can gather from what you have shown me today.

Infact with MSH and todays problems and cost to produce hatchery fish and repair habitat for wild fish ultimately for comercial purpose it seems that we are 180 degrees from what MSY under Magnoun intended.

Its funny we spend all this money to fix the wild runs, and then when they are healthy under MSH anyways they would have to be depleted agian to serve there purpose.

So in essance under washingtons management it costs far more money to produce and fix than is ever generated for the economy.

Seems logical to me.

I'm not sure what the alternative management model to MSY is. Can someone enlighten me?

Silver Hilton,

Im not sure there is any other way than MSY if we want to continue to fish but from what I understand MSY dosent have to mean MSH.

Kind of like how Northern BC manages its steelhead stocks on the Skeena system. Really it is a MSY management. Maximum Sustainable Yeild by having well managed catch and release wild steelhead fisheries that directly boosts the local econemy through sport fishing and tourism supported by healthy wild steelhead stocks. This is how they get the MSY out of the Skeena wild steelhead runs, not through harvest. MSY through MSP,(Maxamim Sustainable Production).

Rich

do you know whether or not the Skeena is netted?

I dont believe it is for steelhead.

If i am not mistaken the Skeena is netted for sockey at the mouth and for Coho

Good post Rich, WDFW is barking up the wrong tree. I sat on the Steelhead Comittee of Trout Unlimited in 2001-2002, we looked at lobbying the WDFW for 100% wild steelhead release in WA, but the rest of the comittee represented areas where their membership would not support catch and release(this is TU right?) I resigned my position over this issue. The argument is this; we (non-indians) must catch and kill all the fish that we can or we lose the fishery to "forgone opportunity". And of course, the fish allocated to sporties is based on MSY. Canada and California are using "maximum sustainable biomass" models, where they look at not how many fish can be killed before it damages the run, but how many species of what size, etc... can a river support? Typical short term thinking, reminds me of the DNR meeting we had in our community. Kill or cut everything we can for a buck today, screw tomorrow. Sad way to look at our natural resouces.

Just a side note: During the Ban the Nets campaign a few years ago a huge number of people were for banning nets in Puget Sound but refused to sign the petitions because the tribes would not be bound by the rules. That , in my opinion, is what is ruining our fisheries right now. Rules do not apply even handedly across the board. Kind of like a a circle of people with guns aiming at each other and no one wants to be the first to lay down their weapon for fear of being shot.

Some thoughts on how to change that would be great.

Rich--
Why MSY ?
While the answer is complex (are they also) the simple answer is that the managers are forced to establish what the potential harvest numbers are. MSY is the ecscapement level that on the average will produce the highest long term average harvest.

For the Boldt case area the federal courts have set the standard as MSY/MSH. The salmon are covered under the Puget Sound Managed Plan (steelhead have been rolled up with the salmon) which is a federal directed mangement plan and is in effect a court order.

The MSY spawner/recruit point is a mathematical number the success or fail of mangement using that point is dependent how the fisheries are managed. Historically any fish in excess of that "magic number" was considered to be failure. Today the managmers generally adopted the stance that fish above that level (not full harvested) is not a failure. They try incorporate safeguards in the planning (considering and incoorportating such things as current survival conditions and management imprecision) so that long term average escapemetns are above MSY rather than below.

Is this a prefect or even the best way to manage? Probably not however it is the current hand we are dealt and going to total WSR is not going to change it. It could potential dramatically effect the recreational fishery - please comments below. Whether that is good or not is for each of us to decide.

Rob -
What you are suggesting "seed all availaible (sic) habitats to 100%" is managing for carrying capacity. It is something that I hear suggested a lot so lets look more closely at that approach. For now I will assuming we are meaning carry capacity under average conditions (rather than current, historic, poor, or good conditions). Carrying capacity can be defined as that point at wchich adding one more fish to the escapement will not produce any more fish. Or in other words every fish in the run is needed on the spawning grounds. This in turn means there can only be any fishing impacts (dead fish) when the runs are above the carrying capacity - likely due to above average survival conditions. At or below average conditions that means no bonking or other fishing related mortalities; in short no fishing. Also it is not possible to know in advance whether survival conditions are above average even those conditions occur there would be no fishing.

While various conservation groups and some of the public might readily buy into such a management approach I'm not sure than many in the angling community would. Such an approach would result in significant economic lost from the fisheries as well as the potential lose of a passionate user group.

Is that where you really manage scheme that you want?

Tight lines
Smalma

Like has been said before, We need to clean out our closet before we can go on to someone elses.

CnR of wild steelhead is first, then we go after the tribes.

Once we get wild steelhead release without exception the war will begin agianst the tribes, WDFW will eventually have no choice but to go with the interests of the sport fishing community and fight the tribes for our fish.

Rather than to split our communtiy farther apart I believe CNR is what will bring us together and funnel all of our energy agianst the tribes.

We need the tribes to utilize forgone oportunity, or just continue what they are doing while we dont have the option any more, before sport fishers as a whole will unite on this issue and fight the real problem

I believe WDFW has wanted to keep the fight between sport fishers the whole time instead of going after the real issue. Thats why they are side stepping the CNR issue this year. They know it would most likely pass this year if heard and they dont want to deal with what it will cause.

CNR is the complete oposite of what WDFW's management system is designed for.

If CnR went through the WDFW would have no choice but to change or revamp the management system as it is.

Even systems that are closed due to not making escapements or are currently CnR for this reason are only this way untill they can support harvest agian then they will re-open to harvest. Under the current management system this is the logical goal. If we went to CnR the sport fishers goal has changed which will force the style of management to change to support CnR. CnR is not everybody's choice but the first and only card in chnaging things in favor of sport fishers. If we continue alowing harvest on so-called healthy streams the current management will not change and sport fishers will continue to get screwed with their allocation.

FYI, From the Wild Steelhead Coalitions book "Biological and Economic Benefits of Wild Steelhead Release"

I know it's a long read, but-

Maximum Sustainable Yield: An Antiquated and High-risk Concept for Wild Steelhead Management

A Brief Historical Perspective on the Maximum Sustainable Yield Concept

Maximum Sustainable Yield, or MSY, is a theory for fish population dynamics that for several decades has influenced fishery management in many parts of the world. The MSY theory basically states the following: (1) there is a fixed functional relationship between the number of spawners and the number of viable offspring ("recruits"); (2) there is an escapement level, the so-called MSY-population point, that provides for maximal harvest by optimizing the number of recruits relative to a minimum number of spawners needed to produce those recruits; and (3) setting harvest rules to maintain escapements at the MSY population point provides for a never-ending maximum sustainable yield. The tenets of MSY were developed by fishery scientists in the mid-20th Century.
In the 1950's and 1960's many fishery management agencies incorporated MSY principals into policy. The 1958 International Law of the Sea, for instance, adopted MSY as the goal of international fishery management (Christy and Scott 1965). At the time, the MSY concept was an attractive alternative to existing management policies because it promised objective science-based guidance for setting harvest rates while offering long-term protection for the targeted fish population (Nielsen 1976). It is widely recognized that the early implementation of MSY-influenced policies heralded an important shift to science-based fishery management (Larkin 1978).
Although the MSY concept spurred an historic shift in mid-20th century fishery management paradigms, MSY shortcomings have long been evident. From an ecological perspective one of the key assumptions underlying the MSY concept is that a target population can be treated as an isolated stock, yet no credible ecologist would dare argue that any wild fish population exists in a vacuum. The MSY concept is restricted to fish population dynamics, yet from a socio-economic perspective, no credible policy-maker would dare to claim that biology was the only important factor guiding fisheries management. An extensive literature on the dysfunctional politics and socio-economics of commercial and sport fisheries was well developed by the 1950's (Nielsen 1976).
The MSY concept assumes that environmental variations are accounted for in the data used to develop stock-recruit relationships, yet these data are generally so limited in time coverage and quality that developing stock-recruit relationships is often more art than science.

For steelhead, changing environmental conditions are a major source of error in run-size forecasts. Both short-term and long-term variations in stream and ocean conditions can drastically alter productivity from one year, and even one decade, to the next. From an environmental prediction perspective, no credible climate forecaster or fish biologist would dare argue that there is strong predictability for the always changing environmental conditions that influence steelhead productivity one year to the next. Each of these problems with the MSY concept, as well as many others, has been well-documented for decades (Larkin 1976).
In the 1970's the concept of Optimal Sustainable Yield, or OSY, was developed as a response to the widely acknowledged shortcomings of the biologically-isolated MSY concept. The OSY concept has been defined by Roedel (1975) as:
A deliberate melding of biological, economic, social, and political values designed to produce the maximum benefit to society from stocks that are sought for human use, taking into account the effect of harvesting on dependent or associated species.
The US Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act of 1976 recognized the multi-faceted nature of fisheries and adopted Optimum Sustainable Yield as the guiding principal for federally managed commercial fisheries. Section 28 of the Magnuson-Stevens Act defined OSY principles in the following way:
(A) [OSY] will provide the greatest overall benefit to the Nation, particularly with respect to food production and recreational opportunities, and taking into account the protection of marine ecosystems;
(B) is prescribed as such on the basis of the maximum sustainable yield from the fishery, as reduced by any relevant economic, social, or ecological factor; and
(C) in the case of an over fished fishery, provides for rebuilding to a level consistent with producing the maximum sustainable yield in such fishery.
In 1996 the Sustainable Fisheries Act (SFA) became Federal law. The SFA amended the Magnuson-Stevens Act to include numerous provisions requiring science, management and conservation action by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). In the SFA Optimum was defined explicitly as follows:
OPTIMUM: The definition has been revised (in (28)(A)) to require considering the protection of marine ecosystems in setting optimum yield. It clarifies (in (28)(B)) that social, economic, or ecological factors may be used to set OY lower than the maximum sustainable yield, but not higher. And it specifies (in (28)(C)) that, for an over fished fishery, the OY must provide for rebuilding to a level consistent with producing the MSY (NOAA 1997: http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/sfa/s***uide/index.html).
Now consider the joint Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife/Tribal Wild Salmonid Policy of 1997 . Washington's Wild Salmonid Policy is wedded to MSY, albeit under the label Maximum Sustainable Harvest (MSH), as evidenced by the Spawning Escapement Policy guidelines stated below:
1. In each watershed region, for each species, populations and/or management units to which MSH management will apply shall be identified and the pertinent management agencies shall establish escapement goals designed to achieve MSH. MSH shall be calculated by using long-time series of accurate spawner and recruit statistics for each population. When such statistics are not available, MSH may be calculated by using historical production, habitat availability, or the best available methods for calculation.
2. The State and Tribes will seek agreement on the total escapement rates, escapement levels, or escapement ranges that are most likely to maximize long-term surplus production for wild populations or combinations of wild populations or management units. These rates, levels, or ranges will be based upon achieving MSH and will account for all relevant factors, including current abundance and survival rates, habitat capacity
and quality, environmental variation, management imprecision and uncertainty, and ecosystem interactions. (WDFW/Tribal Wild Salmonid Policy, 1997).
The first provision of this section of the Wild Salmonid Policy specifies MSH/MSY as the guiding principal for establishing wild salmonid escapement goals. The second provision states that MSH will account for "all relevant factors." Given today's understanding of steelhead ecology, environmental variability, and steelhead data quality, is it possible to accurately account for all relevant factors impacting steelhead productivity? Given today's understanding of the ecology of steelhead and the socio-economics of steelhead fishing, is MSH even desirable?
One does not have to dig very deeply to confidently answer "NO" and "NO" to those two important questions. Based on the present day understanding of steelhead ecology and the socio-economics of steelhead fishing, there is no justification for MSY-management of any wild steelhead stocks in Washington State. Recently published critiques by Gayeski (2001) and Redman (2001) highlight major deficiencies of MSY steelhead management in Washington State. Some of the major deficiencies with MSY-guided management for wild steelhead are listed and discussed in detail below.
Deficiencies with MSY-management for wild steelhead
While the MSY concept has provided a means for a data and theory-driven computation for harvest and escapement goals, the foundations for this concept as the primary consideration for fishery management have long been known to rest on very shaky ground. In this section major deficiencies are discussed from the perspectives of ecology, economics, environmental prediction, and data quality.

A. Ecology:
In its use by the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, the MSY concept assumes that all fish of the same stock are biologically equal. WDFW models the abundance for stocks at the level of major river basins (for example, Skykomish River winter runs or Sol Duc River summer runs). This assumption is invalid for several reasons (see Gayeski 2001, and Ostberg (this volume)):
1. Most wild steelhead populations contain distinct sub-stocks that utilize different parts and/or tributaries of the same basin, sometimes migrating and spawning at different times. Because sub-stocks are likely to have different productivity levels, MSY harvest rates for major river basins are excessive, even by MSY standards, for the least-productive sub-stocks in those basins.
2. In any year, wild steelhead spawners typically have multi-age and overlapping generations, with repeat spawners typically being the most productive spawners. Harvest rates on repeat spawners are therefore exceptionally high, as this cohort is subjected to intense fishing pressure in multiple seasons. Over time, the presence of kill fisheries reduce a population's age-structure diversity and eventually produce a population with an earlier average age at maturity.
 MSY offers no consideration for ecosystem impacts of harvest, and assumes that spawners in excess of the MSY escapement target are "waste."
1. As noted above, wild steelhead populations contain distinct sub-stocks that likely utilize stream habitat in ways that distinguish them from other sub-stocks. Such uses are likely to include adult return and spawn timing, spawning and rearing locations, and smolt migration timing. Each of these differences contributes to life history diversity as expressed by varying time-space habitat use. Life history differences within and between nearby populations are evolved traits that buffer wild steelhead metapopulations from environmental uncertainty, such as floods, droughts, mudslides, variable ocean conditions, etc.
2. Other species that utilize the same habitat are clearly sensitive to the absence or presence of spawning steelhead. For example, decomposing adult steelhead carcasses contribute significant nutrients to streams and riparian zones and nourish other generations of steelhead rearing in those streams.
B. Economics:
 MSY policies implicitly assume that maximizing harvest is the best use of the steelhead resource. For recreational fisheries, this assumption is clearly at odds with reality (see Jenkins, this volume).
1. Maximizing harvest is not necessarily relevant to the value of recreational fisheries. Washington steelhead are ruled a gamefish, and have been recognized as such for decades. The MSY concept is born of a food-production (commercial fishing) mindset. Based on economics alone, the value of a fishery should be evaluated in terms of fishery income, not fish harvested, and should argue for Maximum Sustainable Income. Based on the socio-economics of recreational fisheries, management goals should focus on Maximum Sustainable Recreation (Larkin 1976).
C. Data Quality:
 Effective identification of the MSY harvest and escapement levels requires a long-history of accurate escapement, harvest, habitat and recruitment data. Long time series (a few too many decades) of high quality steelhead and habitat data simply do not exist.
1. Because of difficulties in monitoring, strong year-to-year and decade-to-decade changes in stream and ocean conditions, and the varying impacts of fishing and hatchery practices, such data simply do not exist for any Washington stock of wild steelhead. The data that does exist is biased by the long-term presence of intense harvest rates throughout the data collection period. These collections of data likely offer a severe underestimate of the productive potential of Washington streams (Gayeski 2001).
D. Environmental Change and Prediction:
 MSY stock-recruit models assume an unchanging environment, yet this assumption is clearly invalid based on an abundance of evidence for climate-related time-varying stream and ocean impacts on steelhead survival (Coronado-Hernandez 1997; Pearcy and Mantua 1999; Smith and Ward 2000). Today's harvest rules are based on run-size predictions that are validated after harvest fisheries take place. For streams with wild steelhead harvest seasons, the lack of systematic in-season, or pre-season, run-size assessments means that over-predictions for adult returns promote over harvest.
1. Successful application of the MSY concept, at least in terms of allowing harvest while avoiding over fishing (to escapements lower than the MSY target), requires an accuracy in pre-season run-size forecasts that do not exist.
2. While it is possible to monitor streams to track smolt populations, prospects for pre-fishery monitoring of smolt-to-adult survival rates are very poor. Likewise, on the majority of streams there is no system for in-season run-size assessments (the mainstem Columbia and Snake Rivers being exceptions).
3. There is no demonstrated capability for skillfully predicting year-to-year changes in smolt-to-adult survival rates for steelhead. Such predictions may be possible, but a lack of data and a lack of understanding of how changing estuary and ocean conditions impact smolt-to-adult survival rates provides a major barrier that must be overcome. Likewise, a distinct lack of predictability in the climate system also poses a serious barrier to predicting smolt-to-adult survival rates.

Summary
While the history of fishery management has been shaped by aspects of the MSY concept, using MSY as a primary basis for fishery management is a practice whose time has passed. Groundbreaking treaties like the 1958 International Law of the Sea embraced MSY as a goal for international fishery management. Yet, for the past 25 years federal commercial fishery policies have explicitly identified MSY as a means for identifying an absolute upper limit on harvesting. Federal harvest policies are now formed after considering MSY and other important ecological, socio-political, and economic factors. In contrast, Washington State continues to identify MSY as the harvest goal for wild salmonids.
The long list of MSY/MSH steelhead management problems reviewed here and by many others begs for significant reforms in Washington's wild steelhead harvest policies. Wild steelhead management policies based on MSY lack critical scientific and socio-economic justifications. A wealth of evidence and experience paints MSY as an antiquated and high-risk basis for managing wild steelhead fisheries. In addition, this concept is based on a commercial fishing/food production world view. Even commercial fishery policies have backpedaled from pure MSY doctrines for the past 25 years. Because there are many important dimensions to the recreational wild steelhead fishery in Washington State, the MSY model is simply inappropriate.
A review of wild steelhead fisheries in Washington State highlights numerous failures of the present MSY management model. The very low wild winter-run steelhead escapements to north Puget Sound river basins in 2000 and 2001 (WDFW 2000) and the subsequent closures of spring catch-and-release fisheries in 2001 highlight some of the risks inherent in the MSY approach.
Based on escapement estimates for parent years and expectations for stable productivity, WDFW allowed wild steelhead harvests in December 1999-February 2000 when in fact the run size was much lower than predicted. The result? Over fishing, and for some populations the lowest wild steelhead escapements on record.
Escapements for several north Puget Sound rivers were not met in 2000, nor in 2001, in spite of the fact that the parent generations for these returns had met MSY spawning escapement goals. The long-term consequences of over fishing in 1999-2000 will not likely be known for many years. The short term consequences have included complete closures for March-April wild steelhead release seasons for north Puget Sound rivers in 2001 and may be repeated for at least the 2002 season.
The WDFW management response to poor escapements, in addition to the closures, has been limited to little more than a collective hope that productivity and the depressed populations will rebound sometime in the future.
The WDFW has issued many similar emergency closures to halt harvest fisheries from taking wild steelhead after significant harvests had impacted low numbers of returning spawners. An internet search on the WDFW web-site for "emergency closures" for wild steelhead yields this list for the period since 1997:

Winter Steelhead Emergency Closures
 Hoh River, January 28, 1997
 Puyallup River, March 14, 1997
 Humptulips/Chehalis Basin, November 26, 1997
 Humptulips and Hoh Rivers, February 24, 1998
 Puyallup River, November 19, 1998 (rule change to wild steelhead release)
 Skagit, Sauk, Stillaguamish, Skykomish, Snoqualmie, Snohomish, Puyallup, and Carbon Rivers, November, 2000


Summer Steelhead Emergency Closures
 Lewis and Kalama Rivers, September 16, 1997
 Wind River, August 27, 1997

It seems that the preferred management method has been to put the “burden of proof” on the spawners, which are typically counted well-after the harvest season has finished, while putting faith in the agency's pre-season run-size forecasts. When those forecasts overestimate returns and subsequent harvests further depress escapements, the agency has consistently responded with emergency closures. The net result is a lose-lose combination: imperiled fish stocks and lost fisheries.

Relative to status quo policies, Washington State now has the opportunity to strike a much better balance between recreational opportunities and resource conservation by eliminating wild steelhead harvest and offering more catch-and-release opportunities. The benefits of such a policy shift are clear: it would significantly reduce the risks of over fishing the few remaining healthy Washington State wild steelhead populations while still providing recreational opportunities. For years, wild steelhead harvests have allowed for an unacceptably skewed trade-off favoring the risk of over fishing for the sole benefit of providing harvest opportunities for a relatively small number of ecologically valuable fish. This situation has continued in spite of the fact that recent years have seen more than 80% of Washington's steelhead harvest derived from marked hatchery fish.

In conclusion, the case for MSY/MSH wild steelhead management is simply too weak to support its continued use. In many situations, wild steelhead release seasons provide an acceptable and attractive trade-off between offering recreational opportunities and protecting valuable fish stocks.

It is also clear that wild steelhead release seasons are not a cure-all for the problems faced by Washington's wild steelhead, just one step in a positive direction. Habitat restoration, with a focus on realizing some of the lost potential for wild steelhead production in Washington's once famous but now much diminished steelhead rivers, must also become a high priority for WDFW if their hopes for improved wild steelhead returns are ever to be realized.

References
Christy, F.T. Jr., and A. Scott. 1965. The common wealth of ocean fisheries: some problems of growth and economic allocations. Johns Hopkins Press, Inc. Baltimore, 281 pp.

Coronado-Hernandez, C. 1995. Spatial and temporal factors affecting survival of hatchery reared chinook, coho, and steelhead in the Pacific Northwest. Ph. D. Dissertation. University of Washington. 235 pp.

Gayeski, N. 2001. Maximum Sustainable Yield: A formula for over harvest? The Osprey 39: pp 1 and 5-9.

Larkin, P.A. 1976. Fisheries management - an essay for ecologists. An. Rev. Ecol. Sys. 9:57-73.

Larkin, P.A. 1977. An epitaph for the concept of Maximum Sustained Yield. Trans. Am. Fish. Soc. 106:1-11.

Nielsen, L.A. 1976. The evolution of fisheries management philosophy. Mar. Fish. Rev. 38(12): 15-23.

Pearcy, W. and N. Mantua. 1999. Ocean conditions and their impacts on steelhead. The Osprey 35.

Redman, B. 2001. Make escapement, not harvest, top priority. The Osprey 40: pp 3 and 19.

Smith, B.D. and B.R. Ward. 2000. Trends in wild adult steelhead abundance for coastal regions of British Columbia support the variable marine survival hypothesis. Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci. 57:271-284.

WDFW/Tribal. 1997. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife/Tribal Wild Salmonid Policy. Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, Olympia WA. 46pp. Available via the WWW at http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/.

Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). 2000. http://www.wa.gov/wdfw/factshts/stlhdres.htm. Also see the WDFW Press release from February 16, 2001.

Rich,

All I can say is... why?

We told them so and are still telling them so. They know but choose to ignore.

Anglers have spoken but they choose to ignor.

Our wild steelhead stocks continue to be decimated by over harvest and one by one each population has or is on the verge of colapse. But again they choose to ignore.

All that is happening is they are trying to manage the colapsed stocks into healthy stocks so they can be decimated agian. Using the same failed science that got the fish in this situation in the first place.

It is truely sad the state we are in.

Rich

I know that these are NOT steelhead numbers, but what does it tell you about commercial harvest and what commercial harvest have done on the Columbia alone? They say a "picture" is worth a million words……….so!

Cowlitz,

Exactly it has happened everywhere in Washington to one degree or another.

The Skeena is most definitely netted. A HUGE and very NON-SELECTIVE commercial fishery targeting artificially enhanced sockeye runs as well as pink runs takes place in the lower river. Most years, this fishery takes upto half or more of the summer steelhead returning to the Skeena as an "incidental" catch, along with a sizable chunk of the system's ailing wild coho population. The netting was stopped once (I believe 1998) by then minister of fisheries David Anderson, a true advocate for wild salmon/steelhead who finally put the interests of the fish before that of the powerful commercial fishing lobby. He finally stopped the proverbial buck... no more of this garbage of managing for MSY of only one species (enhanced sockeye) to the detriment of every other wild fish population in the drainage. The commercial boys have been warned for years to find a way to get those coho and steelhead past the nets, and when they couldn't, he just flat shut'em down. Of course Anderson is now long gone, and the Skeena has reverted back to business as usual.

We once had a guy like that here in WA... oh, but all too briefly. Bern Shanks was quickly ousted by the "powers that be" for his stance on putting the fish first. The good guys just don't stand a chance!

WOW Double Haul! I read it beginning to end! The arguments against MSY/MSH are very well laid out in this summary. The music is playing, why isn't anyone dancing... or are they even listening?

Keep the faith brother!

not listening im afraid

Rich

Before one can support going to total c&r for all wild steelhead; one must first establish what is really causing the problem. Is it "sport fishing" that really is causing the decline? Or is it some other harvester that is helping in causing the wild steelhead runs to decline?

Since "wild" steelhead are not marked or CWT (coded wire tagged), how can we say with any certainty that they are not part of someone else's harvest? I hear a lot of "theories" out there, but I do not hear any science to back up those "theories" I know that the picture below shows only "fall chinook", but it also shows how the species is harvested. Have you ever seen any such data like this that relates to how "wild steelhead, or any steelhead is harvested? I think not! Why hasn't that information been established yet?

What science can one use to support the theory that c&r will help our wild steelhead to recover? I believe that most people would not mind erroring on the side of the fish if they had any science to back up that sport fishing is the major cause for our decline of wild steelhead. Where is that science? Millions of CWT have been used now for over 30 years, and we are now just seeing the full data that they have given.

Why hasn't WDFW taken wild steelhead smolts and clipped them, and given them CWT? After you view how Cowlitz fall chinooks are harvested, one must ask; how many wild steelheads are being harvested from someone else or other source? Are we really looking at the "big picture"? Or are we only looking into a narrow little peep hole of the big picture; or are we just seeing what we want to see?

How in the world can we "manage" wild steelhead for MSY or MSH, or for that matter, anything when we don't even know who in the hell is doing the harvesting?

Cowlitz,

I havent seen anything like that for steelhead.

You hit the nail on the head.

We know very little about wild steelhead in general once they leave our coast. But we manage them on a fine line under MSY, MSH using mostly data gathered instream for forcasts. Untill we do know more about these fish shouldnt a more conservative stance be taken and some error on the side of the fish?

"Should a conservative stance be taken and some error on the side of the fish?"

I really don't know Rich. If someone else is nailing all of our steelhead, would a c&r fishery help solve our problem? Most likely not! It would certainly allow whoever was targeting them to continue targeting them until the last ones are gone!

I have no problem with c&r if it could be shown that it would really help the problem, but there is absolutely no science that I am aware of to support it. Personally, I think there is a lot more going on out there than what meets the eye. How can anyone manage a fish when no one knows what's happening to them?

C&R may be a noble thing to do, but may not be the best answer. It just seems to me that there was always 4 times more salmon then there where steelhead, so it wouldn't take to long for someone, someplace, or some other condition to take its toll on our wild steelhead fish. It could even be that one of there "sources of food" of steelhead are being targeted, and that they just can't survive in enough numbers anymore to be self sustaining.

It could be that they are falling prey to some other specie; it could be a combination of many different things. Can any one come up with the science to show that a c&r fishery can or would stop there decline?

As much as our board members may hate to admit it, wild steelhead recovery may already be beyond the point of recovery; and it could all be from causes, reasons and sources that we don't even know exist. It's extremely possible that all steelhead may some day be looking to our hatcheries for there survival as a specie! Hatcheries saving steelhead instead of destroying them…what a switch that one would be!

Anyway you look at Rick, it looks pretty bleak unless someone can pin point what the real problem for there decline is. It's kind of like trying to develop a cure for a disease, when you don't even know what the disease is.

Cowlitzfisherman

So what do you suggest we do right now?

Should we continue buisness as ushuall with only the limitted knoledge we have? Should we continue to harvest as we have management that accounts for every fish before thy even show up?

Or should we put some type of safety nett in there untill we find out what is going on so we can put together the correct management? Im not talking about just CnR.

Good topic and debate, but lets not leap to incorrect conclusions. CF, the dramatic decline in Columbia River salmon fisheries is not so much due to commercial harvest as it is the 21 dams on the river eliminating hundreds of miles of spawning habitat. Eliminate all commercial harvest on the Columbia and runs won't come near what they were in the mid-19th century.

As far as the commercial harvest of steelhead, the commercials are required to list all salmonid species--steelhead just don't seem to be caught in great numbers outside of river mouths.

I like the idea of state-wide C&R becoming a rallying point or some sort of fulcrum, tipping the scales to managing steelhead more conservatively. Although whether the ball will get sufficiently rolling to do anything about tribal netting, I don't know. Perhaps it doesn't matter if the fish are managed using a more ecologically based model.

One other point, we lament how people (fish managers) don't listen to us or view the run data as we view them. Bottom line, sport fishermen aren't listened to because none of us are speaking in a loud and influential manner. We are habitually underrepresented at the North of Falcon meetings where crucial decisions are made. We have no where near the financial support or political influence that the commerical fishing lobbies have been able to muster. There is little unity between our various groups. We deserve what we get.

Which gets me back to one of Rich's premises--using C&R as a stepping stone to a change in managment philosophy, or perhaps more importantly, a rallying point to unite sporties. CF was right in his statement that there isn't a lot of evidence that C&R will recover runs. The best we can say is "it can't hurt" (which is good enough for me). This is a large stumbling block in overcoming the decades of inertia of using MSY. It's easy for fish managers to resist change in the absence of hard data. All these shades of gray. But passage of state-wide C&R and essentially declaring the steelhead as a gamefish, may be the first step in making the fish a true gamefish, not to be used as a food source outside of subsistence.

Here is my analogy.

A cow in a pen will crap in it's food and water and look over the fence for more food and water. If none was given to it it would stand their and die of thirst and hunger. people like to think humans are smarter than cows. All you have to do is look at what we have done to the fish runs in the N Pacific to see that we really are not any different than the cow.

With the law not having anything to do with right or wrong common sense pevailing is now all but impossible. the law is about the process and we will have to completely crash the system before we are utterly shocked into doing the right thing. Like the cow a 2 x 4 between the eyes is all we understand sometimes.

I truely believe CnR will unite fisherman. We will not all agree with CnR as there is a group of fisherman that appose it but I bleieve it will untie us in the sense of bringing about a change in our management on wild steelhead.

With the way things are now both sport fishers groups are loosing. We have lost CnR opportunities due to declining runs and at the same time we are loosing catch and kill opportunities due to declining runs. Instead of fighting to change management we fight each other about who should get the scraps that are still available. This issue is making it possible for our fish managers not to fix the real problems.

WDFW's actions in the rule purposals this year has shown they are affraid of what CnR will bring about, it is really crystal clear they are staying away from this issue because they know what it will cause

WDFW has used the Pergone Opportunity scare tactic with sport fishers on this issue.

They simply would not even here the issue of CnR this year even though it was the loudest voice that wanted to be heard.

They are very affraid of this issue passing.

So what would happen if it did pass and the tribes took advantage of Forgone Opportunity. Would we as sport fishers sit back and bicker amongst ourselves about it or would we force change in the management of our fish? Who would we come down on and demand change?

It's clear the only way to change the management practices is to force them. I also agree, as well intended as C+R is, it means nothing, without a core shift in philosiphy. And C+R MAY or may not force a change. The sport fishers will never become a force to challenge the state. I'm not sure how many read all of the great posts above, I did and have concluded theres no way to make enough people understand such a complex issue. Not so much they wont understand the issues, i'm just trying to imagine explaining it to them, and keeping them awake! Without help from Hollywood, it's a snore.

Perhaps we need help from the only agency with the power and resourses, to force the state to change. The federal government. Is this a realistic option? What federal agency(s) could take action against the state? Is there a history of any previous efforts to empower the feds? I just dont see a way beat someone who makes and changes the rules.


Fight fire with fire!

CF, differentiating wild steelhead from hatchery steelhead is not a problem at all - CWTs are unnecessary. Every steelhead has scales, and every wild fish has a distinctive scale pattern from hatchery fish, based upon the way scale annuli (rings) are laid down in the radically different early life history conditions of hatchery and wild steelhead. These scales are easy to read and in studies I have participated in could be read with 99+% accuracy. Besides, all hatchery fish are clipped and all wild fish aren't on most rivers. I think the gathering of data is not a problem.

What is a problem is MSY, an obviously faulty human-centric assumption based upon incomplete data. One only has to ask, if "overescapement" is so bad for fish, then when they are left to their own devices why do they do it? The answer is simple - it is good for stocks of salmonids to "overescape", which is why they evolved to do it. We only know some of the answers why, but among them are fertilizing the watersheds for productivity of the next generation, excavating the gravel to dislodge silt so the subsequent eggs placed on top of the first redds have a high survival rate, as a hedge against killer floods that wipe out early or late portions of the run, as a way to satiate predators so more than enough fish will survive to carry on - the list can go on and on. No where are we near to ecological optimum for any wild salmon run, and the release of all wild salmonids is the only way to get there.

As far a someone claiming "forgone opportunity" as a reason to prevent release of fish, that is a bunch of bunk and here is why. The value of a sport caught fish is 15 times or more higher than the value of a commercially harvested fish, and this value is in the CATCHING, not the harvesting. I and thousands like me will spend many days on the water, and many dollars preparing for and during those days, just to catch a fish. The dollars I spend have nothing to do with harvesting a fish - I have spent them and enriched the economy whether I catch one or not. However, if I do catch fish, many fish, and release them, I will come back more often to do it again and again. Others will be attracted to the high numbers of steelhead for them to catch and release. This is real, not "forgone", opportunity, and produces real dollars. Now here is the kicker, the more steelhead released, the more catching goes on, the more dollars generated. These dollars are generated in directly in proportion to the opportunity to catch and release a fish.

There real "forgone opportunity" is when this fish is gillnetted and sold for pennies a pound. The economy of the state has forgone the benefits of all the effort and dollars we would have put into catching that fish over and over if it had been left in the river. This is wrong, verging on immoral, and criminally wasteful. It is a stupid arrangement, and it is way stupid for anyone to support it, let alone state agencies and representatives. Tell them so, frequently.

spawnout

Amen, brother, amen!

Spawnout

I assume that only this first section of your post was meant to address my comments?

I am fully aware of how scales can be analyzed to establish "certain biological information"! My point in my earlier post was relating to "how and where" steelhead may be harvested once they have left our rivers. It has always been my understanding that was the entire purpose for our game managers to use the CWT's!

It simply shows where a fish (salmon) comes from and what stock it is, time, etc. about the fish. I guess other information may also be in the CWT, but this was my main purpose for addressing why we were not using CWT's on steelhead.

I have never seen any such data on wild steelhead. If it's out there, it's being kept pretty close to someone's belt! Why else do you think that our fish managers know so little about what happens to these fish once they hit the seas? As far as I know, no ones know for sure were they really go to, or if they may be targeted during there cycle at sea. They knew they were getting hit buy foreign drift nets at one point, but that's all I ever heard. I know for a fact, that lots of fish have been, and still are being caught in the huge commercial harvest of other fish, but once they are drug up onto the decks (almost always dead), they are immediately thrown back into the sea because they are not allowed to keep them!

None of those fish are ever kept by these ships to see where they (the fish) had came from, so no data is ever kept, taken or recorded! They know if they were to keep the fish, the data would show that they were the ones who were "intercepting", and that would mean the end to their fishery!

So I guess I would have to respectfully disagree with you about the gathering of data not being a problem.

Cowlitzfisherman

obsessed

You said;

That's only because on the Columbia, the "mouth of the Rivers are all "sanctuaries", so that means that there is NO GILL NETTING or Commercial fishing at all! But when you look at last years commercial fishery on the Columbia when WDFW "observers" were "placed on" the commercial boats, there was a huge catch of steelhead.

Last year alone (2002) during the tangle net fishery, the nets intercepted more steelhead than the targeted hatchery-origin spring chinook. Of the 20,900 steelhead caught in this fishery 12,400 were wild fish. Estimates of mortality, both immediate and post-release, are between 2,400 and 6,100 threatened, wild winter steelhead, representing between 5 and 15% of the entire run.

So how in the devil can you tell us;
????

If you compare a tangle net to the regular nets that they use for gill netting the coho, they look almost identical. That's WHY they catch so many steelhead!


Only just in the last couple of years did the commercial boys start counting the steelhead in there nets! That's only because they now have "observer's" placed on board. Before that, they had two choices! 1) They had to through them back; or 2) they were sold illegally! Oh yea, I forgot about their "honor system" that they claimed they used!

That is why there is NO RECORDS of the commercial catching of steelhead!

Cowlitzfisherman

I know one thing. MSG is definitely bad for you. But what does it have to do with fishing? Oh wait, that's the stuff they put in the pink worm packages. I see, looks like salt but it's really MSG. Got it.
Just havin some fun of course
Cuttie

Obsessed

Let's talk about what you have said. Believe me, no one hates dams more then I do, nor do they understand more then I do what they have done as far as blockage of both up and down stream fish passage! Saying that, one has to look at my first harvest chart and think about this; the Grand Coulee Dam went into operation on July 16, 1933 when you look at the chart, you can see a huge peak (about 1882) in harvest and shortly afterwards there was a huge drop somewhere around 1888.

There were no dams on the Columbia then, and they netted all year long. So what made those run's drop that much in that time period? There was no rapid population growth to degrade the habitat at that time, so what do you think happen? Was it harvest, was it lack of escapement… what was it?

I know this is only one specie (chinook), but this same specie is also the same specie that science is now using on the Columbia as a diagnosis species, which is also now being used in the Ecosystem Diagnosis and Treatment Method (EDT) process on the Columbia River.

So a person should be able to feel comfortable by using "Chinook" as an example on my chart. Remember, it is only being used as an example here. Since there were no dams between 1882 and 1888, what do you think was the reason for such a huge decline in harvest? If you look at time periods from 1888 to 1933, when the first dam went in, harvest rates were already heading downward rapidly. There was no "great lost" of habitat that was caused by "the mother of all dams" at the time, nor where there any other dams, but yet fish runs were going downwards fairly fast.

If you look at the harvest rate of fish after those "21" other dams went in, the runs had already in my mind, started downward drastically! There is no question that each additional dam has "helped" turned production downward, but the major trend was already headed that way. What is your opinion why it was so?

Around 1986 we had another spike that brought the run size back up again, and I am sure when the next graph comes out, you are going to see a huge spike from 2000-2005. So what does all this mean? Are our salmon and Steelhead runs on the curve to come back? Or is it to late to change the curve?

I am not really sold on that one yet! To me, it looks like commercial harvest had a huge roll in deciding the declines on the Columbia! It appears that blame could be divided up to about 50% commercial, and 50% to the dams. It looks like the two are the true culprits to me!


Cowlitzfisherman

At the end of the day it is the NETS that need to be stopped. Plain and simple the whole world over. Study after study can show how commercial megaharvesting has decimated the runs of most of the fish on the planet ...

As Bart Simpson would say: "DOH!!!!!

Grandpa

When will the people in this state ever figure it out! Now, if the Tribes were as smart as some think they are, wouldn't you think that they would be the first ones to propose the banning of ALL gill net fishing? They would get back ten times more then they do now (for the most part), and fish would once again be able to do there thing!

50% is still 50% no mater how you get them!

When will MAN ever learn…..be it white, red, black, or whatever?

Cowlitzfisherman

CRF, the tribes may actualy be smart in not wanting non-tribal gillnets banned, some where in the treatys its says they can fish in-common with the people of the state, if there were no gillnets they wouldnt be in common with anyone

What is your proposed strategy or plan to get rid of the nets? How are you going initiate change?

DH,

My strategy is one of incremental change. It won't be long before WSC and its allies get statewide WSR. Then I'm expecting we'll get WT to shift gears from sensational conservation to effective conservation. Then we'll do the near impossible and unite the majority of the fish conservation interests. Then we ally ourselves with a like-minded deep pocket. Then CFM will, one-by-one, buy every Columiba River gillnet license that can be purchased on a willing seller basis. Oh, while we're tapping that deep pocket, we lobby the legislature to amend state law pertaining to viable fisheries for commercial interests. Another arm of the alliance will seek to further marginalize the economic feasibility of the salmon net fisheries, as if it really needs it. After we have state law reading that commercial net fishing can be allowed only on stocks that cannot be sufficiently exploited by recreational fishing, we can reasonably turn our attention to improving Treaty fisheries.

I don't mean eliminating Treaty fisheries. I mean developing alternative harvest strategies and facilities for the Columbia treaty harvest, so that surplus hatchery fish can be harvested while wild fish are released. On Puget Sound, changes in the treaty fishery should be persued on a business basis - buying allocations from tribes when there is greater economic value associated with increased recreational exploitation, and there likely will be as the human population continues to grow. I'm fairly convinced that these changes are only going to occur when there is a mutual economic benefit.

And, oh, let's see . . . I guess I'll be able to stay busy after retirement after all.

Sincerely,
and only slightly t.i.c.,

Salmo g.

A guy got to start somewhere!!
Sounds good to me Salmo….as long as I can pay those gill netters off with these

CF, what I see in your chinook graph is a rapid increase in harvest to the late 19th century, followed by a decline, followed by a new level of sustainable effort, followed by steady decline after the 1920s. The sustained harvest that was shown from say the 1880s and early 1920s probably wouldn't have lasted, but the true decline certainly does coincide with the dams, after the early 20s.

Don't know about the bump in the mid-80s, but I do know it coincided with large increases in catch state-wide. God must waved his hand over the ocean or something. Just goes to show how ocean conditions can exert a tremendous influence. Good ocean conditions will exert an influence in Columbia numbers over the past few years, as you point out, but keep in mind, most of these are hatchery fish, not wild. If left to natural production, the glory days of the Columbia are gone.

I believe that the reason for the double peak in chinook harvest is also due to the high effort of commercial fishing.

Through the late 1800's almost all the chinook commercially harvested in the Columbia were highly valued Spring Chinook. Around 1910 or so, the population of springers was in serious, serious decline due to overharvest. Commercial fishers then swapped to Fall Chinook, much less valuable commercially, but still available in fishable numbers.

Initially after the switch from fishing over a depressed run to fishing over an underutilized run, the harvest rates shot up...and then started to decline due to, big surprise, overharvest.

Then the dams came along and really put the screws to both the runs of chinook.

All this info can be found in "Salmon Without Rivers" by Jim Lichatowich, and is backed up by reference to documents outlining the timing and amount of harvest throughout those years.

The above writing by me may not be totally accurate, as I don't have the book here with me, but to the best of my memory, that's what happened. I check the book later, and if something different presents itself, I'll correct my above assertions.

I think it's pretty clear that dramatic declines of Columbia River chinook were taking place before the dams were built, but that the dams really took the ball and ran after their construction.

Fish on...

Todd.

Todd

You got it right, brother. I am a Lichatowich disciple as well.... by far the best authority on the decline of the West Coast's premier chinook salmon superhighway. Decades of overharvest, habitat degradation, mining of wild eggs for broodstock and piss-poor hatchery practices took their toll on the mighty Columbia and had her well on her way to the coffin before the first of the concrete was poured. The dams were just the nails used to seal it!

One of the greatest myths ever perpetuated in this century-long tragedy is how hatcheries would ultimately help us to recover wild stocks. We were lulled into a dangerous conceit that we could artifically manufacture salmon at will without regard for the various habitats that are required to fulfill their natural life histories... hence the title "Salmon without Rivers." Never once has hatchery production proven itself superior to wild production... the key is decent habitat.

Yes we can get more of those eggs to smolt stage faster and in greater numbers than Mother Nature, but then what? These hatchery mutants have such dismal estuarine/ocean survival that perhaps only 1 or 2 percent survive to adulthood. The true measure of production is not how many eggs or how many smolt, but rather how many returning adults.

As our hatchery practices evolve more and more toward drainage-specific broodstock programs, the key question fish managers must be held accountable to is whether the hatchery's productivity at least matches that of the brood river's natural productivity. If we are going to mine eggs for artificial propogation, we damn well better be sure we're getting back at least as many returning adults as we would get if the eggs had been naturally seeded in the gravel. My $0.02.... okay that was a little long.... call it $0.03!

Doc,

I'll make my comment, for now, very brief, as it's almost 3am.

Hatchery production in this state has, for the most part, been assessed as successful or not based on smot production, rather than adult return.

This is like paying farmers for how many seeds they plant, rather than how many plants they grow.

A major goal of the HSRG is to set production goals so that hatchery programs can actually be graded on performance, rather than graded on mere operation.

Later.

Todd.

perfect summation Todd