You have to be careful not lump all of the salmonids into the same category. RA3 has a point, Skamanias do not reproduce well, so if introduced into a small wild population, may have an impact on the run. However, in systems with larger summer-run populations, or larger river systems, the Skamanias have little affect because they do not have the opportunity to spawn with wild fish. I believe this to be the case on the Kalama, in which there appear to be separate genetic lines for wild and hatchery fish. The wilds spawn in different parts of the watershed. Deer Creek on the Stilliguamish as well. These summer-runs spawn exclusively in the tributary of the stilly, and the summer-runs have never found them to interact.

The reason everyone found the high schoolers study unusual is because wild and hatchery coho salmon have mixed in the past, and have resulted in decreased survival and fitness of wild stocks. Thats why they started clubbing hatchery coho in Oregon, which recently created a ruckuss in the news. Perhaps the same spatial mechanism is at work in the Chehalis, keeping the hatchery and wilds separate.

Skamanias are indeed planted in the Great Lakes, but natural reproduction of steelhead has not been that great. The species that has taken off in the Great Lakes is our good ole pink salmon. Pinks were introduced accidently back in the 50s, I believe, and from this accidental introduction into Lk. Superior (??), they have established runs in all 5 Great Lakes. They even have both odd and even runs, somewhere along the way, some pinks came back as two-salts instead of one-salts and established the off-year run.

Although genetic studies are important to flesh out just how hatchery interactions affect wild fish, I think its just as important to study the 'where' and 'whens' of spawning, looking at the size and complexity of the watershed, size and timing of each of the runs, genetic integrity of the hatchery stock, how they're planted, etc. If it were a simple question, the solution would be simple. But since you have these seemingly conflicting results on many different watersheds, there isn't a singular solution. You could ban all hatcheries, but this would not be agreeable to me, and a lot of other folks who value their fishing opportunities, nor is it supported by the existing science, nor is it politically acceptable. You could do more genetic studies, but understand, because of the many different variables that also exist, and differing levels of impacts on different river basins (from none at all to substantial), it would take freighter full of money to flesh things out.

I think the State Legislature could get a clue from this high schoolers study. This person produced for free, worth while results, while WDFW's budget continues to get slashed lower and lower. Its backward thinking--funding keeps getting tighter the farther we move into crisis with salmon and steelhead stocks.

[ 06-12-2001: Message edited by: obsessed ]