EyeFISH,

I think the Snake fall chinook example parallels the mid-C spring chinook and steelhead, where both hatchery and wild fish are listed. And the hatchery fish are deemed essential to recovery of wild fish. And hatchery fish get listed and deemed essential because the wild population cannot naturally sustain itself. Our current working hypothesis is that this can work, that hatchery fish, despite their lower reproductive potential, can supplement and facilitate the recovery of a wild population.

Unlike some, I don't know if this is going to actually work. Two significant negative factors are at work. First is the environmental condition that prevents the wild population from sustaining itself, which in these cases are mainstem dams. Second is the unavoidable adverse affect of hatchery fish reproduction in the natural environment.

It will not work if the environmental condition (dams) are not improved enough to allow naturally self sustaining status to occur. If the environmental problem is overcome, then recovery hypothetically will occur. But no one really knows that because the experiment is still a work in progress. I think Snake R falls have a better chance than mid-C springs and summer steelhead because falls have a shorter life history phase under hatchery selective influence than springers or steelhead. It's possible they will pull this rabbit out of the hat. However, it will be difficult to know because I doubt anyone intends to discontinue the hatchery fall chinook program. As we've repeatedly seen, hatchery inertia in motion is almost impossible to stop.

McMahon,

ESA listings of salmon and steelhead always distinguish between hatchery and wild origin fish in the listings. In most cases, hatchery fish have been excluded from the listing. Only where hatchery fish are deemed essential to wild fish recovery have they been included in the listings.

The issue is not one of genetic integrity or purity as you suggest. When the hatchery and wild fish are of the same stock, they are genetically the same. That is, they exhibit the same genetic profile. However, certain allele frequencies may differ in the hatchery population, but not always. Some times there are genetic differences that we don't readily see. Those genetic differences are behavioral or other attributes that contribute to survival either in hatchery or natural environments, but not the other. This aspect of genetic differentiation seems to create a lot of confusion in the on-going debate about how hatchery and wild fish differ and how they are the same.

As near as I can tell, hatchery fish are only good for wild fish when the hatchery fish are essential for recovery of wild fish and are managed toward that end. Hypothetically hatchery fish benefit wild fish by massively outnumbering wild fish in mixed stock ocean fisheries that are managed for a harvest quota rather than an exploitation rate. Again, that is an hypothesis, and I'm not sure that's been proven true yet.

Sg