Many of the posts in this thread could make a person think this subject has never been discussed here before. But it has, and exhaustively.

No one knows if the Snider Creek broodstock program is positive, neutral, or negative. The reason is because it has never been monitored for its effectiveness. Programs that have been monitored for effectiveness consistently show an overall lack of effectiveness.

Those who suggest saturating the Puget Sound rivers with hatchery steelhead smolts haven't been paying attention. The rivers continue to be stocked with large numbers of smolts, although not as many as during the peak hatchery stocking years. Stocking more hatchery smolts at this time would be an example of throwing good money after bad because the damn things don't survive and return as adults at a rate high enough to justify the cost. Some one posted a link to a very, very old article about the Skagit's Barnaby Slough hatchery steelhead program when it first began in the early 1960s. What that article ommitted because the writer didn't know, and even the old WDG didn't know, is that while they expected 15,000 adult steelhead to return from the 150,000 smolts (10% return!), that high a return rate likely never, repeat never, occurred. Monitoring was never adequate to establish that as fact. The whole 10% steelhead smolt to adult survival rate was based on a one-time case in the Green River during a period where smolt survival rates were exceptionally high. I say exceptionally because these rates have never been documented again. Presently, PS hatchery steelhead smolt survival rates are less than 1%, which unfortunately makes every PS hatchery steelhead program a waste of our money. But it's also the only way to have hatchery fish around in the future is early marine survival rates and ocean survival rates increase to a viable level.

Regarding the SF Sky, the trap and haul operation occurs in the summer and fall only. So wild summer steelhead are transferred upstream, but not winter steelhead.

Sg