First, I agree with just about everything salmo said, including thoughts on balance. However, I would like to clear up one point.

WT does agree that in some instances, the risks of extinction can outweigh the risks posed by hatchery practices. I think there actually may be seven such programs in Puget Sound, that were specifically excluded from the suit. However, the public will now get an opportunity to review the hatchery-management plans for those programs, to evaluate whether they are being run in a way that actually may contribute to chinook recovery.

And I am a little troubled by a reliance on preserving and indeed expanding harvest opportunities as a principal justification for hatchery production, right after salmo did such an excellent job of articulating how negative hatchery and harvest impacts create and feed off pressures from each other. Harvest impacts would be best mitigated by better harvest management, not by imposing new and cumulative risks from poor hatchery practices, particularly with populations being managed for recovery. Washington Trout is working equally hard toward both better harvest and hatchery management.

Ramon Vanden Brulle
Washington trout