I understood what you were saying about programs outside the hatcheries. And these people didn't think that spreading diseases around would ultimately effect wild populations? They must have never heard of horizontal virus transmission. What I was suggesting is that the new policy put some limits on what the ops managers could do. They always liked doing exactly what they wanted.

Yeah, I was around during the VHS stuff. People "knew" it came from importing Atlantic salmon. We also "knew" that all fish on the hatchery sites had to be destroyed, that is until VHS was discovered at one of WDFW's hatcheries. Then they just had to be quarantined. (Just an observation from someone that was outside of WDFW .)