Something smells fishy.

If, as Heather says, the proposed action is to improve hatchery operations to help wild populations, then closing Tokul is suspect. The wild winter steelhead return in late February and March, spawning in April and May. The hatchery winter steelhead return in December and January, and the hatchery uses brood that spawns by January 31 I read. Wild summer runs still spawn in the Tolt, and hatchery summer runs are released from the hatchery. The hatchery summer runs could stray into the Tolt and spawn. However, the hatchery summer run program on the NF Stillaguamish has operated for 40 years, and all indications are that the hatchery fish do NOT spawn in Deer Creek, where an endemic native population continues to spawn in relative isolation.

With that degree of segregation it's hard for me to see how the wild Snoqualmie steelhead runs will benefit from closing Tokul Creek hatchery.

If the issue were economics, I think the Snoqualmie gets one of the better hatchery smolt to adult return rates among Puget Sound streams. Therefore it would make more economic sense to close either the Skagit or Puyallup hatchery steelhead programs, where very large numbers of smolts are reared and released, yet the smolt to adult return rates are extremely poor.

WDFW either needs to make a better reasoned case for the proposed action, or WDFW definitely needs public input to make a better informed decision. I hope some of you are local enough to attend the public meetings.

Sg