Bob -
I'm well aware that the Snider Program was to enhance the early returning portion of the wild population. Given the fishing pressure on the early part of the run and the information known at the time 25 years ago that approach to enhancing the run seemed like a reasonable way to go.


However in the last decade or so folks have come to the realization that if one is concern about the wild steelhead resource that only hatchery appoaches that make sense are wither a well segregated program or a well interated one.

As the Forks study points out a successful segregated program is not always easily obtained. The best would be one that limits the interaction between the hatchery and wild fish to acceptable low levels through some combination of temporal and spacial separation of the two population. In effect being able to treat the hatchery and wild populations as two discrete populations with limited interactions.

On the other hand a well interated program requires that the hatchery and wild populations are a single population. A major underlying assumption is that in order to achieve that the brood stock used as in the hatchery program is representative of the wild population. The means avoid selection of genetically controls traits for the hatchery population that would different from the spawning wild population as a whole. While the brood stock Snider Creek program may not have been selective for size, age, etc it clearly was selective for both an early run timing as well as early spawn timing. In short the objectives of the program was not adapted to reflect the recent developments in the understanding of the wild fish needs.

Programs like one on Snider Creek further compound the problem by increasing any adeverse impacts by amplifying the contribution of the hatchery fish to the wild population and in doing so incease any non-representive selection in the brood stock. My understanding is that the Snider Creek brood fish typically represented appproximately 1% of the potential wild spawners in the Sol Duc. Further my back of the envelope calculation would seem to show that 1% of the population that ended up in the brood program would produce 1/3 to 1/2 of the smolts being produced in the Sol Duc. That makes it a near certainity that the selection the fry from the brood fish experienced in their time in the hatchery (which is much different than the selection they would have experienced in the wild) would be infused into the wild population.

I think one thing that is extremely important for folks to realize is the responsive fish management will always be an iterative process. That is today's management will be build on yesterday's and as the knowledge base increases changes will be needed. Of course there is always a need to make immediate decisions with the less than perfect knowldege available at the time (it should understood that with the passage of time those decisions will be found to be flawed. Successful management is a classic example of "adaptive management" as management changes with increasing the knowledge and understanding of the biological systems. The unwillingness to adapt to the changing knowledge is the one "mistake" that should not be forgive.

Tight lines
Curt