Wild Salmon Recovery and Atoning for Guilt

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Are we professional fisheries scientists collectively guilty of encouraging delusions about the possibilities for restoring wild salmon to the Pacific Northwest? As discomforting as it may be to disclose the future of wild salmon relative to society’s apparent values and preferences, our most useful contribution as fisheries scientists is providing information and assessments that are policy-relevant but policy-neutral, understandable to the public and decision makers, and scrupulously realistic about the future. Otherwise, we simply squander our professional credibility to become acolytes of delusion.

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