Rob Allen,

I beg to differ. Hatchery fish benefit wild fish when they are killed in their place. The sole purpose for hatchery fish in my book is to provide extra harvest opportunity. This takes some of the pressure for harvest off of wild runs.

For instance at seiku, wild coho and chinook are released while only hatchery fish are harvested. If there were no hatchery fish, only wild fish would be killed during albeit shortened seasons.

As long as there is an allowed harvest, wild fish will benefit from hatchery fish.

If harvest is totally taken out of the equation (show me a run of salmon where this is the case), then sure hatchery fish do nothing but compete with wild fish. But that is a situation that will not exist as long as any fishing is allowed.

Just my $0.02