Originally Posted By: Mattie
Hello everyone first and foremost, but does this mean the Snider program was terrible for wild steelhead in the Duc even though it has been going on for 30 years and the wild component there is stronger than anywhere else in the state? Do you really think a nice hen in the mid-teens would spawn with a 7-8lb hatch buck? That's like saying there's no natural selection in the wild. I get that people read what "people smarter than them" write, but at some point a guy has to look at what he has learned for himself and believe it. Alot of those "smart" people can't tell a buck from a hen even when buck snot is oozing out of it. Fish that spawn in April-May can't spawn with fish that are dead by March.


Neither the current study nor the conflicting account of the retired bio presented by RG make any conclusions about integrated programs like Snider.

The issue being debated is whether the conceptual strategy of temporal segregation of hatchery populations from their wild counterparts actually works out in real life. For the past 4 decades, this has been presumed to be the case.

The old Skagit reports suggest that in that system, it worked.... no detectable hybrids over 7 years.

The new Willapa report suggests otherwise.... with up to 80% hybrids!

This suggests to me that run-timing may not be representative of spawn-timing. The chambers fish get there earlier, but may not necessarily spawn right away. How else would the hydrids be created?

The other possibility is that there was significant overlap in the run-timing between the latest Chambers hatchery fish and the earliest Willapa native fish.

Either way, what the latest study concludes is that temporal segregation alone is NOT sufficient to prevent co-mingling of these populations on the gravel, even in the presence of a significant (though imperfect) migration barrier. One can logically infer that the co-mingling would only increase in the absence of any migration barrier.
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)

"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)


The Keen Eye MD
Long Live the Kings!