it was nice meeting you at the meeting last night in aberdeen.

we've been having this conversation and i had some questions of my own, so i contacted the hatchery manager of the elwha facility to find out exactly what the plan was for planting during the restoration process.

and the big number is indeed the 60,000 chambers creek fish. not only are they an out of basin stock, but they will be planted during the 5 year fishing closure which includes tribal fishing. i think it's great that there will be a total fishing closure, and i applaud the tribe for agreeing to it. but planting these fish with no harvest is absolutely the wrong thing to do. they will be the first fish to enter pristine habitat and they are out of basin, even if they've been planted in the river for a long time.

secondly, the wild winter steelhead are at such low numbers that the tribe is running a captive brood stock program for the winter steelhead. captive brood programs are a last gasp measure when a stock is at the edge of extinction. i have never heard of a river with a captive brood program then plant out of basin stock on top of them. that is what is going to happen on the elwha. i will say that while i am no fan of hatcheries, it sounds like the tribal captive brood program is doing things right. genetic studies to make sure siblings aren't being mated and a true attempt at creating diversity during the spawn. hopefully the program will work as intended to jump start the winter runs and keep the genetics around in case the initial silt levels in the river are lethal to fish.

imagine the redfish lake sockeye program in idaho working so hard spawning the last few sockeye in captivity while at the same time planting lake washington sockeye in the lake. it wouldn't make sense there, and it doesn't make sense on the elwha.

as for chinook, i think size is one issue although i'm not sure smaller fish cannot access upstream habitat. i cannot imagine the original chinook population pre-dam was uniformly giant chinook. i imagine there was diversity even among a larger sized population. secondly, the hope is that the enough of the genetics are there that some fish start moving back towards a spring run timing vs. the summer timing that the hatchery stock now favors. I think the upper watershed will favor spring chinook and summer steelhead due to velocity barriers that are passable at certain flows (less likely late fall, winter, spring, and early summer runoff). One hopes that within a couple generations, especially if harvest rates (in river) stay at zero or near zero, that diversity within the salmon populations will start to express itself as they make use of varied habitat.

still excited about the removal, even with my serious reservations about the winter steelhead hatchery program.

chris