Rich,I hope I live to see your vision of restored,abundant wild runs on all our rivers.

I have never fished the Hoh and don't know much about it.Imagine the Hoh under this scenario.It is dammed,suffers from major habitat problem resulting from pollution and is subject to overharvest because it is near a major metropolitan area.Twenty years ago a hatchery was built to make up for the decline of the wild stocks due to the reasons listed above.

Would it make any sense to remove the hatchery and expect the wild fish to rebound without having first addressed the original set of circumstances that were killing off the wild runs?

That is the situation many rivers face.Treating them all like the Hoh will not work.We need to address the "other problems" before we eliminate hatcheries.Reform,yes.Eliminate,no.

RA3,this is about hatcheries being eliminated if that is the end result.I am curious if WT had other legal options that would have effectively petitioned the Feds to force the State into compliance with the ESA,assuming that they are actually in violation,without trying to shut the hatcheries down.If so,then I think this is all about the hatcheries.