When fished non-selectively, hatchery fish in mixed stock areas encourage overharvest. back in the 1970s, during early years of the Boldt decision, WDF was proud of the fact, and claimed so in print, that they solved the problem of not meeting Chinook escapement goals and having hatchery surpluses by lowering the goals. back then, they hit the lower target.

Look at coho in southern Puget Sound. A great and very successful hatchery program has cleaned out the wild fish.

It is possible, too, that the volume of hatchery fish released leads to some sort of over-capacity in the ocean. Note, though, that we are fishing down all sort of things out there, many of which probably served as salmon food. So, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. We lower the producitvity of the ocean and get fewer fish back so we lower the number of fish we produce.

In the long run, if we want a lot of salmon or other apex predator fish, then we need to leave the food base alone.