NO ABSOLUTLEY NOT!!!!!!
Any effort that pulls the money and focus on wild fish in wild habitat is absolutely No good at all.
Cloning= hatcheries.. NO MORE HATCHERYS!!!!!!! Thats already where the vast majority of the WDFW budget goes No more money for hatcheries PERIOD!!!
Aside from the money issues
1. you'd have to take genetic samples from as many specimins as possible. WDFW has mega mortality problems when they handle fish so I want them to leave fish alone let alone handle as many as possible.
2. you still have to raise the offspring( most likely in a hatchery) Thet will lead to the genetic selection of offspring that are adapted to survival in the hatchery enviroment. Do this for a few years and you have exactly what we have now Steelhead that have been genetically changed from the origional through the cumulative effects of deletrious alleles. ( loss of diversity) and the subsequent lack of ability to reproduce in the wild.. This is the same problem they have with The captive breeding process. No matter what you do or where you start from you cannot get rid of the hatchery enviroments selection of individuals best suited for life in a hatchery..
Some people may not like it but the ONLY way we will save wild steelhead is through 1. protecting their habitat and 2 NOT HARVESTING THEM!!!! Thats it,, no short cuts, no middle ground either we save them or we don't Period thats it and there ain't no more..