Rivrguy,

Yes, GH has a solid run of wild Chinook. But there is not enough surplus to provide fishing for WA recreational anglers who comprise taxpayers and license buyers. That being the case, why should we spend money raising hatchery Chinook for AK and BC? It only makes sense to spend that money on hatchery salmon when sufficient numbers return to the WA recreational creel. I'm not opposed to spending money on raising hatchery salmon. I'm only opposed to doing so when the cost is not justified by the return to the recreational creel. So is the cost of raising Hump hatchery coho justified with a return of 1115 to the recreational creel? This gets directly at the question of how many dollars should taxpayers be willing to spend to return one salmon to any fishery, be it AK, BC, WA NT commercial, WA NT recreational, or WA treaty?

Cohoangler,

My suggestions are predicated on not spending tax dollars on hatcheries to support commercial fishing that cannot exist in the absence of hatcheries. Such hatchery production is nothing less than a welfare subsidy. Why spend the money? Why ARE we spending that money? NT commercial and treaty fishermen make up less than 2% of WA state's population. Hatchery production to support these activities is NOT a good investment. (Of course I understand treaty Indian fishing rights, but let's keep that separate for the moment.)

Spending money on hatcheries that return fish to the recreational creel MAY make sense if the number of fish creeled is large enough to justify the cost of hatchery production. Treaty Indian fisheries are entitled to half the surplus hatchery production, so that factor needs to be considered when deciding whether it's worth the cost to raise hatchery salmon for recreational fishing. Raising hatchery fish simply for treaty fishing (less than 2% of WA taxpayers, remember) is not in the interest of the 98% of WA taxpayers.

WB cannot and won't ever produce enough wild Chinook to support any fishery. If Chinook fishing in WB is desirable, then hatchery production is a necessity. And I'm postulating that it is only worthwhile to raise those hatchery Chinook if, and only if, a sufficient number of those Chinook return to the recreational creel, in that the recreational creel represents more taxpayers and license buyers.

WB can produce a lot of wild coho, but possibly not enough to support recreational fishing every year. In that case, it may make economic sense to raise hatchery coho at a level of abundance that doesn't jeopardize wild coho populations, since recreational fishing can be mark selective.

GH produces both wild Chinook and coho, but not enough wild Chinook to support treaty, NT commercial, and recreational fishing. Since commercial fishing is NOT mark selective, why do we allow any NT commercial Chinook fishing in GH? Any conservationist will tell you that doesn't make any sense if you truly wish to conserve wild Chinook. QIN makes the policy choice to see no difference between hatchery and wild salmon, so where does that leave the prospect of conserving GH wild Chinook? If there were no hatchery Chinook, then QIN would have to manage for the conservation of wild Chinook or otherwise harvest them to functional extinction. It looks like the recreation sector is sh!t out of luck regardless, when it comes to Chinook fishing in GH unless and until ocean survival rates swing dramatically upward. Meanwhile, taxpayers and license buyers continue to subsidize commercial fishing, treaty and NT, while remaining shut out of fishing for Chinook. This status quo does not make sense to me as a taxpayer and license buyer.

C'man,

Precisely. Just as we never raised hatchery buffalo to keep relic buffalo hunters employed, we don't raise hatchery deer and elk to satisfy recreational hunting demand. We allocate the natural surplus production to recreational and treaty Indian hunting. No one is demanding that the natural populations be augmented with hatchery produced animals just because we might like to kill more than one deer or elk per season. So why do we raise hatchery salmon to placate a commercial fishing demand that can't even possibly exist in the absence of hatchery salmon because there are simply too few wild salmon around these days, just as there are too few wild buffalo roaming the Great Plains any longer. The status quo is just plain silly in the 21st century and continues only because of WDFW institutional inertia.