Kristine Harder and Terrance Pardee are correct in asserting that trawlers, gillnets, and fisheries mismanagement in general severely affect numbers of spawning king salmon. However, they miss the key point: daily ADF&G surveys from 1991 to the present indicate healthy and slightly increasing returns to the unlogged and unroaded Tahini River, and drastic declines to the heavily logged and roaded Kelsall. Fishing methods, climate, or other factors should impact fish from both rivers similarly.
In response to Terrance Pardee’s misleading and/or false statements: 1. I never witnessed or participated in any egg-take and remain opposed to such hatchery-based programs. 2. Eggs were not taken from Kelsall River or Nataga Creek. Eggs taken from Tahini kings until 1992 have not shown a negative impact to that population. 3. The essential link between old-growth forest and spawning salmon was established decades ago by fisheries scientists in the Pacific Northwest. The most severe impacts of logging and logging roads sometimes took many years after logging to manifest. 4. To imply that “old clearcuts [that] have been reclaimed by nature” are beneficial to fish is misleading; the structural components of old-growth forests essential to fish do not return until 200 or more years after logging.
The ongoing drastic decline in spawning kings from the (once) most important
tributary of the Chilkat is tragic. Cooperative restoration efforts are long overdue.
Eric Holle
Lynn Canal Conservation