Originally Posted By: milt roe

I am a biologist, and I personally think that the genetic impacts of hatchery outplanting over many generations is under appreciated as a potential explanation for slow recovery of some populations. Fish populations maladapted to their river systems would show many of the same symptoms of a habitat-limited population, and it would take many generations of selective pressure to re-build a population well-suited to any specific system even if habitat was pristine. So if more adults spawning does not result in more smolts produced, perhaps is isn't necessarily the habitat that always is the only culprit to blame. And before I get jumped on here, I'm not saying that habitat isn't also a big player in low freshwater productivity. In fact I think habitat always limits populations. But there are quite a few systems that used to support decent runs, continue to have good habitat conditions, yet don't seem to be recovering as might be expected.


Hopefully this doesn't divert the thread from the habitat preservation as an issue thing. PS rivers are NOT the HC rivers, so just to make it clear, it seems the problems of the PS urban rivers are significantly different than the HC rivers in question.

So it seems that you feel that this is one of the reasons why the HC rivers are depressed? If so, I've got a couple of questions.

As far as I know didn't they stop any hatchery plants on the Hamma Hamma, Duckabush and Dosewolips a while ago? If the genetic dilution of the fish were something that depressed the stocks, wouldn't the fitness of the fish be addressed after a few generation such that they would start to at least *rebound*?

If Quinn is correct and there is a tipping point (wished I had the book here as reference), will the population ever rebound naturally? I'm assuming it would as however long ago there weren't anadormous fish in those streams....

Finally, is there a way to do broodstock injection on those streams to help the fish recover? This is a dangerous proposition, but if say a good cross section of wild fish were released (Sauk fish, Hoh fish, Queets fish, etc...) for a couple of cycles, would this help bolster the genetic of the fish in question via genetic diversity?

Anyways lots of questions!