The salmonid fisheries of the Columbia River Basin (CRB) have enormous socioeconomic, cultural, and ecological importance to numerous diverse stakeholders (eg state, federal, tribal, nonprofit), and there are a wide array of opinions and perspectives on how these fisheries should be managed. Although we appreciate Duda et al.'s commentary, it offers only one perspective of many in this context. The objective of our paper (Hand et al. 2018) was to provide justification for “the importance of social–ecological perspectives when communicating conservation values and goals, and the role of independent science in guiding management policy and practice for salmonids in the CRB”. However, we did not intend to strictly advocate for a single course of action, and the available space within our paper's Panel 1 limited us from engaging in a thorough ecological debate.