Rich,

I don't think it's as simple as good or bad unless one simply wants to fish and has no care for the remaining ecosystem. When Skamania fish take hold in a system that had few or no native summer runs, you're still not getting a free deal. Something in the system pays for it. If not displaced native summer run production, then very likely it will be displace production of some winter run production, although that should occur mainly at the margin of winter run productivity - but truthfully, we really don't know.

Such new summer run production could also come at the cost of resident trout production. I can't classify that as either good or bad. It is a trade of one type of biodiversity for another. When the summer runs take hold at the expense of any pre-existing population, they do so only because they are reasonably well adapted to the environmental conditions they encounter.

Several of the coastal rivers had native summer run populations, although significantly smaller than the predominant winter run populations. Introduction of Skamania fish most likely results in introgression with the native fish. If the total summer run population seems to have increased, it has occurred at the expense of either or both the native summer and winter fish. There is no free lunch in the environment.

You have to consider the trade offs. Historically there was a native summer run population in the upper Sky, mainly the North Fork. The falls on the South Fork kept that upper sub-basin restricted as resident trout habitat. But the native trout were pretty well fished out; extensive stocking of hatchery trout was commonplace. By coincidence, Skamania summer runs and possibly some remaining endemic summer runs entered the South Fork when salmon were trucked above the falls and have established a population. Is that good or bad? Or just a different fishery diversity than before?

We might regret the loss of the native trout population, but not having the present steelhead - and bull trout - populations or the introduced salmon would not bring the trout back. It's a disturbed ecosystem, and it cannot be made what it was.

Examples abound. Can you imagine Montana without rainbow or brown trout? Trout fishermen love them, but it hasn't been such a hot deal for native cutthroat trout diversity or abundance. Same with the steelhead and salmon in the Great Lakes. They are only well adapted to a handful of tributaries. Most of the populations are hatchery supported, and they do displace other fish, or take up the ecological slack for extirpated species.

Changes in biodiversity are an environmental fact of life. I hope we can hold the regretable ones to a minimum.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.