feedback on Benefits of Wild Steelhead Release report

[Howzer]

Curt Kraemer, North Puget Sound Fishery Biologist for WDFW, read and provided detailed comments on our report titled: "Biological and Economic Benefits of Wild Steelhead Release." Curt and I have decided to post his comments here to generate a broader discussion among the authors and forum readers. I will post his comments one chapter at a time. Curt's letter and comments on Chapter 1 follow. Since I wrote the first chapter, I'll start the discussion with my response to his comments.

Nate Mantua

*********************************************
DATE: July 18, 2002
TO: Wild Steelhead Coalition

FROM: Curt Kraemer, District Fish Biologist

SUBJECT: Comments on WSC's "Biological and Economic Benefits of Wild Steelhead Release."


I have just received a copy of "Biological and Economic Benefits of Wild Steelhead Release."
from Nate Mantua; thank you very much. I read the report with great interest. A very impressive
effort, the authors are to complimented on a job well done. Below are some comments on each of
the chapters. This comments are not meant as "shots" at the authors but rather an attempt to supply additional information and observations based on my experience in the North Puget Sound region.

I hope the reader finds this information of interest and it is a helpful addition to WSC's report.

COMMENTS:
Chapter 1 -Maximum Sustainable Yield: an antiquated and high-risk concept for wild
steelhead management.

A good job of laying out the history and some of the pit falls of MSY management. However steelhead and salmon management in the Bolt Case area is operating under a Federal Court order that fixes the management objective as MSY. While it may be attractive to attempt to change that order the State's track record in Federal Courts regarding tribal fishing issues is basically 0 forever. The court orders and Wild Salmonid Policy (WSP) does allow for the State and Tribes to mutually reach agreements that may differ from strict MSY management.

When the State first developed the current approaches to steelhead management attempts were made to put the needs of the fish ahead of fishing needs. This was accomplished this two basic ways. During development of stock recruitment curves a number of assumptions or data judgements were required. In nearly every case when the managers were give a range of values they picked values that erred on the side of the fish. One of the factors that has contributed to past MSY/MSH manage failures has the attitude that escapements above the MSY were management failures. For steelhead management in the Bolt Case area generally the management philosophy has been the MSY escapement objective is considered to the minimal point and escapements above that level are not only OK but preferred.

The setting of the most of the current escapement goals was done around 1984 and generated considerable controversy. Though developed with admittedly limited data most of the new goals were about double the escapements that were being achieved prior to that time. Most anglers thought the new goals were too conservative. The agency had taken a clear position that we were choosing to error on the side of the fish. Whether that is still the case is the focus of much of the current debate.

Specific comments:
A. Ecology
1. Management for sub-stocks. In theory this sounds like an excellent idea, however in the real world it becomes extremely messy in a hurry. When does various tributary populations become sub-stocks? Generally just this issue can result in prolong discussions among the genetic folks and gets all hung-up in meta-population theory. I don't claim to understand all the ins and outs of those discussions, however depending on who I question I get different answers. Additionally this approach gets in what is sometimes called "creek-by-creek" management.
With "creek-by-creek" management there seems that there is always a subset of stream that are likely to be under-escaped. Strict adherence to such a policy can mean no fishing; especially in "mixed stock areas. A good real world example of the pit falls of "creek-by-creek" can be illustrated with Snohomish wild coho. The escapement monitoring of Snohomish coho involves 52 index areas. For the last several years 3 indexes (all in the Riley Slough complex) have had zero spawners. Last season the counts again were zero, this is spite of a basin escapement of wild coho of over 262,000 fish (escapement goal 70,000; previous highest escapement 150,000). Under the "creek-by-creek" management approach there should have been no Snohomish coho fishing anywhere. If the WSC membership truly believe that this type of management is the best approach then I would hope that there never would be any rigs with WSC logos coho fishing in the Snohomish basin, at Sekiu, or elsewhere in marine waters. Given the severe under-escaped status in those creeks even catch and release would be inappropriate. That should not mean that regulation adjustments should not be made to take into account sub-basin needs. In fact that is commonly done; the management question becomes how much and what type of "selection" is one willing to live with?

The spawning timing appears to be primarily related to the spring/summer hydro-graph of the stream rather than run-timing. Spawning is timed so that the fry emerge from the gravel during favorable flow conditions. Those populations that spawn in streams that experience snow run-off lasting into the summer spawn later than those populations that spawn in systems with more fish friendly flows earlier (rain driven systems). While the earliest returning fish may often spawn further upstream than later returning fish it may not be universally true. For example, the furthest upstream spawning winter fish that I have observed (spawning more than 110 miles above tide- water on the Skagit system) do not arrive in the spawning area until May.

Table 2 - For the Skagit system it would be correct to say that the co-managers (Tribes and State) had not agreed to an escapement goal. (Note - they did reach agreement prior to last season).

Table 3 - The Pilchuck river is part of the Snohomish system. The habitat in the Pilchuck sub-basin was include with the Snohomish system and is part of the overall Snohomish goal. Please refer to the "creek-by-creek" management discussion in the MSY comments. As a point of interest note that the current escapement goal for the Snohomish system was set and first managed for beginning with the 1984-85 season. The average Pilchuck winter steelhead escapement prior to 1984/85 was 714 fish; post 84/85 it was 1,439.

Table 4 - Tolt, Sultan, and Wallace are also part of the Snohomish; see above discussion.

[Howzer]

Curt, first off, thanks very much for carefully reading and commenting on our report. Your comments touch on several important topics, and I will attempt to respond to at least a few items here.

1. Because I am not a strong believer in the utility of the MSY concept for real world fishery management, I find it very troubling that our state's Wild Salmonid Policy has identified MSY/MSH as a guiding principal. I am glad to know that the co-managers have the option to agree on management targets that differ from strict MSY guidelines. I believe that deterministic concepts like MSY, which specify a fixed relationship between the number of spawners and the subsequent number of offspring, are so at odds with reality that we ought to find a new philosophy for guiding harvest and escapement policy. I don't know how we might do that, but it seems to be a critical step in moving away from a "politically-driven" system to a more "scientific reality-based" system.

2. Sub-stock and creek-by-creek management: Your example for Snohomish coho is really interesting. I have heard of similar examples for "metapopulations" like Bristol Bay sockeye. The metapopulation as a whole can have great productivity, while certain tributaries or even distinct basins can do quite poorly. To me, this argues for careful sub-basin monitoring and low exploitation rates. My intent in discussing the importance of sub-stocks and potential for overharvest was aimed at the typically high harvest rates promoted by MSY-policies. For average productivity, MSY harvest rates can be as high as 50-60%. If those rates are uniformly applied across all the sub-stocks in a major basin like the Snohomish, it seems highly likely that today's less productive sub-stocks will be overfished. For sustaining productivity over the long haul, we simply cannot predict which sub-stocks will be favored under future streamflow and/or ocean conditions. My concern is that high harvest rates that may be appropriate for a productive population today may cause irreversible declines in the sub-stocks that would have been productive 10 or 20 years down the road. I guess the only way to minimize the risk of such overfishing is to keep harvest rates for wild spawners at low levels. The state appears to have this in mind with the strong focus on selective fisheries for coho (harvesting only hatchery fish). I see the dilemma faced by WDFW when trying to balance fishing opportunities with stock protection, I just worry that we've leaned too far towards maximizing harvest with past management practices. Do you think overharvest has played any role in the currently dismal wild winter steelhead situation for North Sound rivers?

3. Spawn-timing versus run-timing. Is it true that early-returning winterruns (say November-December fish) spawn at the same time as the late-returning (say May-June) fish? What might be the ecological advantage for having a broad return timing, compared with a broad spawn timing?

4. I listed the tributaries that faced emergency closures as distinct river basins because the state lists distinct seasons for each.


Nate

[Curt]

Nate -
Not much interest but here are some responses to your questions.

1) As we discussed in August at the WSC meeting any modeling or method of establishing escapement goals for management (MSY or otherwise) will be deterministic. That seems to be the natural approach that we as human use to attempt to get our minds around such complex issues. The trick is not to use such methods but to recognize that there are weakness in that approach and attempt to incorporate safeguards in the management to take in account those weaknesses. One attempt in recent years to move from fishing to some harvestable number with in-season updates has been to move to some sort of expliotation model approach.

Expliotation rate management is what is currently being attempted with Puget Sound wild coho. The managers have established a slidng scale of expliotation rates depending on marine survival conditions. Under low survival conditions the fishery will have a low expliotation rate, at average conditions a second rate, and under good conditions a third higher rate. Those rates vary by stock (river basin) depending on the productive of that stcok. The appeal to such an approach is that it is easier (and more often correct) to model fisheries and their expected impacts based on expliotation than numbers expected to be caught. With this tiered approach the theory is that with large runs more fish will be put on the spawning grounds; the fishery would not attempt to fish the population down to the numeric escapement goal. Of course the concern would be at low survival rates that fishing would continue and the populations would be "over-fished". The danger of the "over-fishing" occurring will depend on the safeguards built into the management scheme. Time will tell how well this approach may function. Since moving to this type of management we seem to be achieving decent to excellent escapments. On the Snohomish for an example, recent escapements (the last 5 years) we have had escapements as low as 58,000 and as high as 262,000. The numerical goal is 70,000. The last 5 years have include the 2 highest escapements in the data base. It appears that under poor conditions current management preforms at least as well as the previous approach and under better conditions it truly allows the fish to show what they can do by allowing for much larger escapements.

2) "Creek by Creek" management - The trick with this issue is how to balance the pratical management needs with the legimate concern with individual stock concerns. The approach has been to have large basin type goals but to monitor the status of the various sub-basin populations and hopefully be able to "tweak" management to response to the smaller unit needs. One only have to look at the complexity of the fishing regulations on the various portions of the Snohomish basin steelhead seasons to see this process in action.


3) Early returning of winter steelhead. Clearly early fish will on the average spawn earlier than late returing fish. The early fish may or may not spawn early but the late fish don't spawn before returnig - how is that for a duh!

The ecological role of early returnig steelhead is an interesting issue over which have I stratched my chin a number of times. Limiting the discussion to just wild winters I think one needs to define "early". Prehaps the best way to define "early" is in relation to the population's spawning timing. Fish returning at the first of the year on the Olympic Penisula where spawning begins by mid-February may not be any "earlier" than a fish returning in mid-February on the Skagit where spawning begins in late March.

In spite of the obvious selection against early returning steelhead still continue to show up well in advance of spawning. It appears that there some advantage for reaching spawning areas several weeks (4 to 6) ahead of spawning. It seems to me that fish "want' to return early to assure reaching desired spawning staging areas, this allows the fish to quickly access spawning sites with favorable conditions. It must be remebered that this fish have evolved in what were historically very dynamic river systems. It also may important behaviorally in that early arriving fish may more readily establish dominance.

An interesting aspect of this issue is what I'll call the "super early" rerturners. There are a small number of fish that return well in advance (3 to 5 months) of spawning. Almost summer run like. For example have seem wild fish returning in the Skagit basin as early as November and December. It is likely that this fish are destine to spawn in remote or areas difficult to reach (above canyon or other steep gradient areas). These fish need to arrive early to allow time to find the flow conditions needed to provide access to those areas. Those fish I have seen all have been extremely sexually immature and the spawn timing in those remote areas tend to be similar to the basin as a whole.

A cautionary note - when ever discussion steelhead we are talking generalities and the fish are great at providing exceptions to any rules we may wish to impose.

Curt

[Howzer]

Here are the rest of Curt's comments on Chapter 1. my responses are in italics:

For steelhead the statement "...the presence of kill fisheries ....eventually produce a population with an earlier average age at maturity" is not true. For fish (example chinook) which are fished on as immature fish (feeding areas) this can be the case. Chinook can begin entering the catch as 2 or 3 year olds. They continue to enter the catch until maturity; thus there is greatly reduced likely hood of fish destined to spawn as 6 years actually surviving to maturity. This results in younger age at maturity. However, with steelhead we fish on them only as returning adults (mature fish) and thus should not be changing the average age of maturity. Reducing the number of repeat spawners would likely reduce the average age of the population.

* good point, looks like I was out to lunch on this one. Thanks for catching my error, and pointing out the impact that harvest has on repeat spawners and the average spawning population age.

B. Economics:
This discussion makes valid points about recreational fisheries. Clearly in today's world the value in recreational fisheries is the number of man-days of recreation. One of the questions remain is whether consumptive or catch-and-release or some combination of the two will produce the most days of fishing. The discussion also needs to recognize that the economic mix in parts of western Washington includes commercial fisheries.

* As long as there are significant numbers of anglers participating in CnR fisheries, it seems to me that the answer to your question is pretty obvious. CnR seasons provide for more recreation hours than do kill fisheries when there is a limited number of fish for harvest. Am I missing something?

C. Data Quality:
Excellent points however to identify any other management points (say carrying capacity) would require similar time series of data with the same weaknesses. Regardless of the management objectives chosen, the key is to recognize the limitations of the data that underlines the management framework. Once those limitations are known it is possible to develop risk averse management.

* My point here is that the data used to identify things like carrying capacity, productivity, etc. are probably not adequate to the task. I agree that as long as those limitations are acknowledged, you can only do the best with what you have. MSY guidelines, in my view, simply do not promote risk-averse harvest policies. They maximize harvest at the expense of other considerations (like the uncertainty associated with future changes in productivity, for instance).


D. Environmental Change and Prediction:
The statement "For streams with wild steelhead harvest seasons, the lack of systematic in-season, or pre-season, run-size assessments means that over predictions of adult returns promote over harvest." is partially true. However, it is equally true that the same factors are just as likely to result in under harvest. If the management system has some risk aversion built into it then the above factors on the whole should result in under-harvest being more prevalent than over-harvest.

* A risk averse management scheme, I think, would feel very good about erring on the side of under-harvest and not so good about erring on the side of over-harvest. So I don't think the odds for either case should be equal.
If a stream is overloaded with spawners (a situation I'd love to see on our steelhead rivers), the ecology of the system will take care of itself rather quickly. On the other hand, if a stream is under-escaped, there seems to be much less certainty that it will rebound. I appreciate the difficulty in conducting in-season run-size assessments, and in making accurate pre-season forecasts. Because of all this uncertainty, I simply think the situation begs for a greater degree of caution than promoted by MSY/MSH models.

Summary
The statement: "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." is purely conjecture. That situation had little to do with the past management. Those poor returns are clearly due to low productivity of the parent years. The fish that have spawned since the mid 1990s have been producing only ½ fish per spawner. The closures (reducing the wild fish kill fisheries as well as the C-N-R fishery) illustrate the ability of managers to response to changes in stock status though perhaps not as timely as desired (in a more ideal world the changes would have taken place in 1999).

The closures of March-April seasons in 2001 and in some areas in 2002 are not a consequence of any potential over fishing that may or may not occurred in 1999-2000. The fish, except for repeat spawners that didn't return in 2001 or 2002 as expected were not substantially affected by the fishing in 1999-2000.

* My point here is that the management approach used to set seasons in 1999 and 2000 relied on preseason run-size forecasts that did not foresee the continued drop in productivity, thus overestimated the number of fish that returned. Based on the preseason forecasts, there would be enough fish to allow for early-season (Dec-Feb) harvest and still meet escapement goals. It was only after the season was finished that WDFW determined the returns failed to meet escapement goals. This approach is fully justified with the MSY concept, because there is an assumption that the number of spawners determine the number of recruits. It's simply at odds with reality.

Another aspect of the MSY approach that I wanted to challenge was the notion that it is total spawners in the system that matter. Could it also be true that a broader diversity of spawners (for instance run timing, spawning timing, and habitat utilization) might have buffered the stock as a whole against this recent productivity crash? A long history of intense harvest rates on the early component of the wild steelhead run in the Snohomish system has clearly narrowed the diversity of the natural spawning population. Likewise, as you have pointed out, high harvest rates (incidental and directed) on the stream population of rainbows has also chipped (or hammered?) away at this diversity. How can we know if a broader stock diversity might have helped stabilize productivity? Without adequate monitoring, or a decent-sized early component or stream component of the run, I don't see how we can reject this possiblity.

Nate

[Curt]

Nate -
While others don't seem to have questions here are responses to your latest questions.

B. Economics -
CnR seasons provide more recreation than kill fisheries only when there is substantial angler use in those fisheries. At the onset of the CnR steelhead fisheries in Western Washington (late 1970s and early 1980s) there were very few anglers that fished CnR; certainly far fewer than would have fished kill seasons. however WDFW (Game then) continued to allow CnR fishing as an effort to provide diversity of opportunity. The flip side of the same arguement continues to apply.

The very best way to maximize recreation if that is one's goal is to provide diversified opportunity to bring in all angler interests. To do so the manager would need to provide fisheries that allocate the impacts (dead fish) as indicate by angler interest. To step outside of the steelhead fisheries issues for a moment; the man-days of fishing supported by a CnR halibut fisheries would be dwarfed by a kill fishery while the popularity of something like the trout fishery on the Yellowstone river in the Park may use all of the impacts in hooking mortality during a CnR fishery. Clearly the motivation of the anglers in those fisheries are very different and the management of the fishery needs to be different.

C. Data quality-
It is not the MSY guidelines that are not risk-averse enough but rather the "rules" under which the fishery is managed to achieve those guidelines. It is becoming more common in both steelhead and salmon management to take in account management imprecision and "buffer" the MSY guidelines so as to err on the side of the resource. In this case the management goal would be for escapements at the MSY level plus some amount to assure the escapement goal is met X% of the time. Depending on one's comfort level various folks lobby for larger or smaller buffers. That is different than inadequacies of the MSY guidelines.

D. Environmental change and preddicition -
See above - the size of the buffer one might pick depends on how close to the line one wishes to live. It seems to me that what you (WSC) is arguing for is not so much as a move from MSY guidelines but for large buffers when MSY guidelines are used.

Summary -
Relying on preseason run-size forecast may actually be more conservative than having in-season updates. With in-season updates the theory is to make season adjustments based on indications of run strength. In theory this sounds like a nice approach but in practice what often happens is the desire for an update is such that it is needed early in the run followed by later updates. When the runs return with normal timing such an approach is normally successful in achieving desired management goals. However when run timing is something other than normal things may not go quite so smoothly. If the run is late the later updates can catch the change in run strength and fisheries can be adjusted. However when runs are early over harvest may occur. The result is management works well with normal or late timed runs but may result in over harvest with early timed runs and this results in the longer term average result being overfishing.

Hope your trip North went well!

Curt

[Felton]

Thanks Curt for taking the time to provide comments on the report, and thanks Nate for your comments. I wrote the economics chapter. I pointed out in the paper that the great majority of steelhead harvest in WA (as well as OR) is of hatchery fish. So the majority of angler effort focused on steelhead harvest could continue generally unaffected by a wild fish harvest ban. We need to manage the wild fish differently than the hatchery fish, and WDFW should not pretend that a wild steelhead harvest ban means that the fishing season will be ruined for all the anglers who like to harvest some fish. Plenty of us WSC’ers like to bonk a hatchery fish when possible.

More importantly, longer term, there should have to be an increase in angler days as more people would be attracted to better opportunities and longer seasons to catch and release wild steelhead. If you believe that wild steelhead are not only a limited resource, but maybe are a declining resource, then it would certainly be the case that the number of wild steelhead angler days will decline over the long term if wild fish continue to be caught and killed at what might be unsustainable rate. Management by closure after the fact is not good economics. I still maintain that a wild steelhead is too valuable to catch just once, and it seems an economic and biological imperative to manage wild steelhead on a catch and release basis.

I would also encourage folks to read Pete Soverel's recent article in the Osprey in which he discusses some management options that should increase angler opportunity and economic benefit of wild steelhead. Very well thought out as usual from Pete.

Best regards,
Felton

[fredaevans]

threads put on the Board to date.

Just "rated" it a 'five;' too bad we don't go to 10 on the scale.
fae

[Howzer]

bump