This is an interesting post and certainly brings out a large list of unanswered questions.
Certainly all of us want to see strong populations of wild fish remain, however, we must also realize that interaction of fish from various locations has gone on forever. Think about it, the salmonid populations we see today, didn't just drop out of the sky and populate all rivers at once, they likely entered mainstem sections and over thousand of years colonized or "strayed" into other areas. ODFW has "wild fish policy" which essentially allows for a small number of "out of basin" fish to stray, any above that get thumped! I have always thought it ironic that if an elk or eagle travels hundreds of miles from one basin to another it's "migration", but if a salmon does this it's "straying"!!

I also find it very hard to believe that one, two,or even 25 yrs of hatchery parenting will effect the long-term gene compliment in offspring. Salmonid fish have adapted to what we see today over literally thousands of years, do you think that a few years in a hatchery is really going to change that much? Every year for many, many, years each of us has been removing the most aggessive biters in the population, are they still biting? Of course they are, so why would this be any different? Some things will not be selected out that easily, natural selection occurs over thousands of years, not over 10 generations. Of course if we select for certain attributes in a population such as size, or return time, we will likely see a big change. But if the fish are collected in a manner that mimics a natural return, from early to late in the cycle, big and little, etc., the entire genetic compliment should remain.

So if a hatchery female and wild male spawn in a river, haven't they both proven themselves worthy? I certainly am an advocate of wild fish but also recognize that I would like to have a chance for myself and others to harvest fish. Some scientists would like to preserve wild populations that are so low none of us or our children will ever see a fishery in these areas.

I might mention that there is some exciting research beginning this year that will evaluate hatchery/wild interaction. Adult fish will be injected with an element that is transferred to the juveniles. Juveniles will then be sacrificed and tested for its presence/absence. If it works as expected, the same test can be done on wild/hatchery interacting populations in real life to determine the level of success for each group, wild to wild, wild to hatchery, hatchery to hatchery, interesting stuff.

Thanks for letting me ramble.

RM