Ok, all this talk about hatcheries and wild fish recovery misses the point entirely.

Don't get me wrong I do believe this may be the best salmon year in two decades, but that is due to outstanding marine conditions, not a sudden resolution of the dilema facing wild fish.

Probably, the other big issue causing increased catches in washington this year is that the canadian commericial troll fleet can't fish off of Vancouver Island (where a lot of our fish grow up) because of their coho recovery efforts. Something to bear in mind next time the canada-US salmon treaty comes up for renegotiation.

What has laid wild salmon popluations low in this state is habitat destruction ie siltation, channelization of streambeds, damming, irrigation, water quality issues, low water due to human usage etc. etc.

For wild salmon to recover, we need to address these habitat issues and these are long term issues. Sure, overfishing, hatchery wild interactions, all that does happen, but salmon can recovery in a very few generations from such insults--they undergo extreme selective pressures during their lifecycle. Look at places with pristine habitat like alaska and you have some hatcheries and overfishing from time to time, but the salmon bounce back quickly. Why? because the habitat is intact.

I think as long as there are serious habitat problems, we will need hatcheries where those problems exist if we want to have salmon fisheries. I guess that is the debate here.

At best hatcheries are only tangential to the issue of wild salmon recovery.

If we want wild salmon to be around for the future, we need to address the habitat issues.

Habitat is the key!

Geoduck