Micro,

I like your passion, but your sample examples, i.e. Mill Ck and Blue Ck simply do not fit the natural world, as outlet streams to two of the world’s largest hatchery systems.

1. How do you know that wild fish don’t spawn with their brothers and sisters? I’m not aware of any evidence supporting your allegation. Incest, as it were, probably doesn’t benefit either wild or hatchery fish, and if the genetic principles we do understand apply, then such crosses are likely among the first eliminated from the future gene pool, either by non-development or rapid loss to disease and predation. Hatchery fish culture methods have changed significantly over the last decade and a half to reduce the adverse effects of too few and too limited a number of crosses.

I think you’re trying to solve the least of problems, if not a non-problem. Some of what you suggest was tried in the late 70s with no discernable improvements in performance. Old WDF may have some reports on this; I don’t know. Anyway, inbreeding has not been isolated as the primary cause of poorer performance of hatchery fish compared to wild fish. They perform more poorly because they are hatchery fish and don’t experience the fitness-measuring selectivity of the natural environment until after release. I think your proposed solution would increase the number of problems associated with hatchery culture, rather than reduce them.

2. Hatcheries used to be rated by the number of fish, or pounds of fish, released. That has changed. Most hatcheries are now rated by the survival of the fish they produce. Unproductive hatcheries remain in the system for two primary reasons: a. resistance to change; b. political interference. Making changes can adversely affect employment balances in an agency, and resistance to that can be fierce. An unproductive hatchery in an influential senator or representative’s district is almost impossible to close.

Nowadays, smolts of most species are released at the time and size most conducive to their surivival, or the release date is timed to reduce impacts to wild fish. For example, hatchery coho on the Skagit are not release until after nearly all wild chum have emigrated. Your proposed solution is self-contradictory. You cannot release fry/smolts asap and also not release them all at once. Increasingly, smolts are allowed to naturally emigrate on their own schedule after reaching the necessary minimum size (conducive to survival) and considering other stock management restrictions.

Your idea to return adult carcasses to streams is a good one. But even so, there wouldn’t be enough food to support all the smolts in a heathy river system. Food limitation is theorized to be a primary cause of anadromy in the first place. That is, if there were enough food for all the fish in a river to eat, why would they leave and migrate downstream in the first place? As juvenile fish grow, food and space become limiting for species like steelhead, coho, and chinook, for example. As they migrate downstream, seeking food and shelter, they encounter the ultimate house and smorgasboard, the estuary and ocean. From this, species evolved the anadromous characteristic. (Off topic, but first of course, freshwater fish had to evolve from marine fish species - a fun topic for another day.)

3. In some cases yes, in others, not so. Big rivers tend to be more diverse, when their tributaries are included. Consider the Skeena, some of its tribs are noted for large steelhead - like the Kispiox, Babine, and Sustut. Yet, there are runs of small and medium sized steelhead to the Morice. There is much more to explaining the size of these fish than the size of the river of origin.

Most hatcheries are built close to salt water because they get higher smolt to adult survival that way. Hatcheries, by their nature, increase the freshwater survival of salmon and steelhead. Locating them far upriver and releasing the smolts there subjects them to a longer freshwater residence, exposing them to many “fitness for survival” features like finding natural food and avoiding predators, two things we know they are not so fit for.

I appreciate your observation of the hipocracy of anglers who clamor for quality fish habitat but want no part of logjams. Logjams are a good thing for fish.

Again, I like your passion. I hope my post helps inform you that the first and second problems you describe are likely a long way down the list of problems limiting the success of hatchery programs. Fish incest, to the extent that it occurs in wild and hatchery populations, is unlikely to be the primary cause of poor performance, since it likely is very heavily selected against in both the developmental and rearing environments. Size and time of release of hatchery fish is correlated to their survival and impact on other fish. In some cases, the number of hatchery fish released should be further reduced to avoid or reduce their impact to natural stocks we are trying to restore and recover.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.