Should WDFW be doing something like this statewide?

HENRY MILLER"
The (Salem) Statesman Journal"
SANDY, Ore. (AP) – It just seemed natural, what with the dam disappearing and all.
Because the benefits aren’t worth the costs – economically and environmentally – Portland General Electric is getting rid of Marmot Dam on the Sandy River near Portland in 2007.
“It’s all going to look like that when it’s gone,” said Jim Muck, pointing to a pristine, fern- and tree-lined stretch of the crystalline waters of the Sandy downriver from the dam.
Muck, a fish biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s North Willamette Watershed District office in Clackamas, was standing mid-river on a steel-and wooden bridge that spans the Sandy next to the dam.
There’s just one problem, though: no Marmot dam, no ladder; no ladder, no fish trap.
Muck’s and the department’s answer to the loss of the sorting station: convert the Sandy River Hatchery to only native fish gene stock.
Going native is a work in progress at each of the state’s hatcheries under the Oregon Plan for wild-fish conservation, he said.
“As an agency, we’ve been converting a lot of stocks” to fish just from that river or drainage, Muck said. “We’re probably right in the middle. We have other hatcheries that have already been converted.”
Sandy River Hatchery collects about 1.2 million eggs a year, including about 300,000 spring chinook, 160,000 winter-run steelhead and 700,000 coho salmon.
“The coho have always been an in-basin” native-strain stock, Muck said.
During the run-up to the removal of Marmot Dam, hatchery sorters are keeping native Sandy River fish and removing the remnants of Big Creek and Eagle Creek hatchery strains that remain in the river.
The same applies to spring-run chinook, which had been a Clackamas River genetic stock.
“We do genetic testing, wanding,” Muck said. “We have ways of finding out hatchery from wild fish,” including the required adipose fin-clip on all hatchery fish.
Wanding means running a detector, similar to a hand-held airport metal detector, over the head of the fish to detect if it has a tiny, internal coded-wire tag embedded in its nose.
The switch to native fish for hatchery stocks is a natural evolution for the program, said Ken Bourne, the hatchery manager.
“It’s a lot of work, but in the long run, it’s worthwhile,” he said, peering down into the fish trap at Marmot Dam, where about a half-dozen huge steelhead and coho were finning in the clear, cold water. “I think it’s pretty interesting, pretty exciting.”
By the time the dam is removed in 2007, allowing the fish to migrate unimpeded, almost all of the non-native fish will be removed from the gene pool, Muck said.
So without the ladder and trap, where is the hatchery going to get the fish it needs to grow the future crops?
Anglers will play a big part, Muck said. Through a catch-and-transport program, they will deliver their live catch to the hatchery.
“We’ll start collecting fish in 2005, both steelhead and spring chinook,” Muck said. “If we need more, we can seine some deep pools.”
But why bother?
If you are going to use native fish exclusively, why not just get rid of the hatchery at the same time as the dam?
Two reasons, Muck said: fishermen and fishermen.
Without the continued operation of the hatchery, anglers never would have backed the removal of Marmot Dam.
And without the hatchery fish, you couldn’t have the fishing that the Sandy offers, he added.
“The Sandy’s always been one of the top 10 rivers in the state,” Muck said, referring to fishing. He added that because of its proximity to Portland, “this stream gets more fishing effort than any other stream in the state.”
Hatchery-raised Sandy stock still will be fin-clipped, so you can keep the ones you catch, he said.
And anglers shouldn’t notice much difference, except for more water in which to fish, after the dam disappears.
“The only thing they should see is a shift in run timing for steelhead. The wild fish return later in the year than the former Big Creek hatchery stocks,” Muck said. “You won’t see a change in the spring chinook.”
Clad in neoprene chest waders from a session in icy waters of the trap, Travis Schneider, a technician at the hatchery, grinned.
“I like the idea of going with an in-basin stock, so we’ll still have fishing in the basin.
“The fishermen, I think, are pretty happy. It’s a win-win situation for everybody.”