Mr. Chain Blue Lightning himself! I think your being a little quick on the lock recently, bud. The overall topic that is being addressed here needs no be discussed somewhere, sometime. If the name calling can stop I think we are gettng at some good stuff.

On the argument brought up about the Broodstock Program: I'm no biologist, but I'll take a crack at the logic. Lets assume 20 adult females that would normally spawn in the wild are captured for egg harvest. Lets assume there are 5000 eggs per female. That equates to 100,000 fetilized eggs. I believe the incubation of eggs in a hatchery environment produces a higher number of fry and smolt. It has to, they are raised in a dish under nominal stress. So right there, the process is yielding more fish than would have occured naturally.

If I'm correct, the survival rate of hatchery fish and wild fish at sea are about the same, with 10% or so returning as adults. So we've got more fish comming back to spawn resulting from broodstock production than would have had their parents spawned naturally.

Where "the available science" falls apart is knowing how many of those hatchery fish are able to successfully reproduce in the wild and their subsequent yield of smolt . I assume it is relatively low (that whole "retarded^2" thing). But, with more returning fish than would have been the natural case, a lower yield may not necessarily mean fewer fish, in which case Broodstock programs may actually be helping to sustain wild fish. Who knows? I do know we don't have the data to intelegently make absoulute statements about the Broodstock Programs either way.

I am tempted to write-off PNWfisher's statements simply based on the fact they smell of anti-fishing sentiment, and I am a fisherman.