Prove me wrong then? Countless amounts of data if you look deep enough that supports my statement.

Take this for example. The Lewis River Native Fall Chinook. It's the only run of Fall Chinook in the Columbia river basin that hasn't had hatchery integration or supplementation since the 1970's. It's also the only run that self sustains, exceeds escapement and allows harvest year after year. To top it off the Lewis river is 21 miles from Dam to mouth where it enters the Columbia so in theory only about 14 miles of habitat. I understand a Fall Chinook is not a steelhead but a salmonid is just that, a salmonid.

The neighboring river (EFL) has turned into a gene bank and has native steelhead populations that have rebounded tremendously since the hatchery plants being taken away.

First and foremost I hate to give up what I had as a kid fishing these two rivers, I happened to grow up on the EFL and have caught well over a 1000 steelhead out of that river. The selfishness in me wishes there were still 120K hatchery summer steelhead planted there and 100-140K hatchery winter steelhead planted there but seeing there were literally very few natives in that era to what there are now with no hatchery plants simply makes sense. I have no desire to concede in these ways knowing we will likely never get these plants back but,
the real question is when is everyone going to address the elephant in the room and give up the selfishness?

Keith