Mike,

"So, in essence, ALL steelhead fishing would cease for a number of years, with no guarantee of the return of any steelhead fishery?"

If all steelhead hatcheries were to close right away, within a couple of years there would only be fishing on those few streams that support healthier runs of wild fish, and I think that they, too, would close within a short time, not due to the hatchery closures, but due to the fact that until all the other problems are fixed that they face, they, too, will join the rest of the rivers on the "not enough to fish for" list.

"Has anyone looked at the impact the closures would have on the local economies where the sportsmen currently spend millions of dollars annually in search of these fish?"

Every time the idea of closing certain hatcheries comes up, this definitely comes up,too...the hatcheries provide most of the fishing, so most of the money spent is at least related to the operation of the hatcheries.

"One of the things you repeat several times in your post is the issue of HABITAT. In what way will the closure of the hatcheries help habitat restoration?"

This is the key question in your last post...and while I don't think it is necessary to close hatcheries to do it, it will take some serious convincing of fish managers and politicians to really get it done otherwise.

Over the past 100 years, whatever the reason for massive local downturns in wild fish populations, the answer has not been to fix the problem, or avoid the problem...it's been to "mitigate" the problem by building a hatchery that is intended to replace, both in number and quality, the fish that were killed.

This has lead to hundreds, if not thousands, of local extinctions of all species of Pacific Salmon and steelhead.

The fact of the matter, however, is that this DOES NOT work...it does not return fish of a quality and quantity that is comparable to what was there before the "project" that lead to mitigation.

Hatcheries built at the foot of dams are the most obvious complete and utter failures of this "destroy and mitigate" pattern, but it happened all over the ranges, in dozens of different ways, not just with dams.

And still does...with the same low to no chance of actually "mitigating" the loss...

And the government has shown repeatedly that it doesn't care if it actually mitigates, but they do care that it costs much less than modifying or not doing the project, and that it makes the habitat destruction "legal" because it has been legally "mitigated", even though it has not been mitigated in the least by any biological, social, or economic standard.

If there were no "mitigation hatcheries" to put up on a pedestal as the fair trade off for habitat destruction, then what would have to be done to actually mitigate the effects of the project?

One, they might have to actually design the project in such a way that environmental impacts are minimized, rather than build another hatchery to set off the destruction.

Two, they might have to do habitat work to replace "in kind" what they have destroyed, rather than build another hatchery.

Three, when doing cost/benefit analyses for the project, the true costs will actually be in the analysis...costs of habitat mitigation, etc., rather than just dumping those costs on society...rather than just assuming that the social and environmental costs of the project will be "solved and mitigated" by another hatchery.

Instead of the big Gov't announcement that "construction of this project will create 156 jobs and bring 5.4Million into the local economy"....you'll hear that, plus "and will cost us billions of dollars in the future to fix all of the social, economic, and environmental problems it will cause"...(sounds a little like the Columbia River, doesn't it?)

So, in answer to your final question, the removal of hatcheries (or better yet, the removal of their consideration as the "solution", rather than the literal removal of the hatcheries) would expose the habitat problems for what they are, and put actual habitat protections and restoration back on the board as the actual way to "mitigate" for habitat destruction.

In many ways, it's not so much the hatchery that is the problem, but the myth about what it represents, and the actions taken upon that myth.

Abundant hatchery fish mask the fate of the weak hatchery stocks, so EITHER remove the hatchery, OR don't let it mask the problem.

Mark the fish, count the wild ones, study the effects of the hatchery fish and fisheries on the wild ones, and practice true weak stock management.

Harvest managers pay a lot of lip service to this, but don't really do it (look at the complete opposite happening on the Columbia right now, while the Department speaks out of both sides of its mouth in the same sentence).

I think that talk of removing hatcheries is designed to either remove them, so that they can't mask the problems, or to force managers to stop leaning on them as a crutch and make them actually ask the hard questions about fish management, and habitat protection.

I think that if you focus on protecting the fish, then the fisheries will take care of themselves.

Fish on...

Todd