Originally Posted By: darth baiter
Not to mention the fact that the program is ripping wild fish from spawning grounds, then raising progeny in a hatchery and then marking them, enabling their retention in the sport fishery where otherwise the offspring would not.

Depending what the current escapement is, how the broodstock is collected, what the hatchery productivity is, what the productivity of the hatchery progeny are once they return is, what harvest rate is going to be applied, what proportion of the natural population is going to be made up of hatchery returns (and a bunch of other questions), this program may be fine. However, given the paucity of information provided by the WDFW hatchery folks to whatever part of WDFW that wrote this Determination of Nonsignificance, making that determination is pretty much [Bleeeeep!], IMHO (and bleeeeep is not what I wrote).



Edited by OncyT (01/27/20 07:59 PM)