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#222431 - 12/13/03 01:41 PM Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Anonymous
Unregistered


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?

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#222432 - 12/13/03 02:37 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
cowlitzfisherman Offline
Three Time Spawner

Registered: 06/14/00
Posts: 1828
Loc: Toledo, Washington
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
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Cowlitzfisherman

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#222433 - 12/13/03 03:24 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Anonymous
Unregistered


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.

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#222434 - 12/13/03 03:32 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
cowlitzfisherman Offline
Three Time Spawner

Registered: 06/14/00
Posts: 1828
Loc: Toledo, Washington
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! beathead

When will people figure out what our problems are? beathead


Cowlitzfisherman
_________________________
Cowlitzfisherman

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#222435 - 12/13/03 03:55 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Anonymous
Unregistered


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.

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#222436 - 12/13/03 04:28 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Rob Allen Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 05/10/03
Posts: 311
Loc: Vancouver WA
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

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#222437 - 12/13/03 04:44 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Anonymous
Unregistered


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.

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#222438 - 12/13/03 06:26 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
cowlitzfisherman Offline
Three Time Spawner

Registered: 06/14/00
Posts: 1828
Loc: Toledo, Washington
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
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Cowlitzfisherman

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#222439 - 12/13/03 06:45 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Anonymous
Unregistered


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. thumbs

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#222440 - 12/13/03 06:48 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
silver hilton Offline
Repeat Spawner

Registered: 10/08/01
Posts: 1147
Loc: Out there, somewhere
I'm not sure what the alternative management model to MSY is. Can someone enlighten me?
_________________________
Hm-m-m-m-m

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#222441 - 12/13/03 06:57 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Anonymous
Unregistered


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).

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#222442 - 12/13/03 07:53 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
grandpa2 Offline
Three Time Spawner

Registered: 06/04/03
Posts: 1698
Loc: Brier, Washington
Rich

do you know whether or not the Skeena is netted?
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#222443 - 12/13/03 07:59 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Anonymous
Unregistered


I dont believe it is for steelhead.

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#222444 - 12/14/03 12:42 AM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Rob Allen Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 05/10/03
Posts: 311
Loc: Vancouver WA
If i am not mistaken the Skeena is netted for sockey at the mouth and for Coho

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#222445 - 12/14/03 08:25 AM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Steeliegreg Offline
Juvenille at Sea

Registered: 11/30/00
Posts: 127
Loc: Port Angeles, WA
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.
_________________________
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#222446 - 12/14/03 08:32 AM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
grandpa2 Offline
Three Time Spawner

Registered: 06/04/03
Posts: 1698
Loc: Brier, Washington
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.
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#222447 - 12/14/03 11:30 AM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Smalma Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/25/01
Posts: 2834
Loc: Marysville
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

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#222448 - 12/14/03 11:38 AM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Anonymous
Unregistered


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.

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#222449 - 12/14/03 11:48 AM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Anonymous
Unregistered


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.

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#222450 - 12/14/03 05:50 PM Re: Why does Washington use MSY? does it have to?
Double Haul Offline
Three Time Spawner

Registered: 03/07/99
Posts: 1440
Loc: Wherever I can swing for wild ...
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.
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