FNP,

Link? That's computer geek skill that I've not acquired. I can barely touch type. I've got the Kalama papers or excerpts somewhere in my sedimentary filing system, but I honestly couldn't put my hands on them right away.

Frankly, I'm somewhat baffled by the results. It's almost intuitive that Chambers Creek winter runs don't survive simply by being so out of sync timing wise. Timing of emergence from the gravel is a critical component of survival. The early spawn timing of CC fish has them emerging from the gravel at the end of the spring "bloom" instead of the second late summer bloom that normal timed steelhead encounter, so there feeding opportunities become limited before they achieve early critical growth.

What I don't understand is the poor performance of hatchery steelhead with appropriately timed spawning. A fry emerging from the gravel doesn't know he had poor parenting, and he eats anything that looks like it might be food, and by trial and error figures the process out. Why that fish doesn't subsequently survive to adulthood, I don't understand. Nonetheless, the evidence indicates that survival is poor for the hatchery steelhead. Some do survive, tho.

I forget the biologist's name from Oregon that has found much the same for coho salmon in coastal streams there. The hatchery coho are poor performers in the natural environment. I don't understand that one at all. My experience is that you can create a wild coho run from hatchery coho quite readily. I accept that the hatchery coho are perhaps less efficient at it coming out of the gate, but we've seen hundreds of thousands of "wild", or naturally reared coho smolts come down the upper Cowlitz that were from plants of hatchery fry. And the fry to smolt survival rate was quite acceptable. Of course, coho seem to be the most "plastic" of the salmonids. They take to hatchery culture quite well, and are easily reared, transported, and so on. So perhaps they can be returned to natural production more readily than the other species as well.

I'm not sure about chinook. I would expect that if the spawn timing is the same as natural fish that hatchery chinook could successfully reproduce in the wild, but really, I'm speculating.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.