An interesting discussion1

As Salmo g points this fish business is pretty complex and I find it pretty obvious that across the landscape the "one size fits all approach" is likely doomed to failure in most areas. Instead within some broad guidelines tailor crafting programs for individual basins/stocks is more likely to achieve broad success.

I would suggest the following as someadditional principles for consideration as part of the mix as programs are developed if indeed the goal is to achieve substantial wild fish production.

1) Surplus escapements at hatchery racks are not management failures but rather the cost of mix stock and wild fish management.

2) It has always been difficult for any user group to separate their desires from the needs of the resource. It is very important that those users desires be considered but they can not be allowed to trump the long term wild resource needs.

3) I would throw another type of conservation/recovery hatchery program as a potential alternate approach. That would be a wild brood stock program with significant production but only for a single fish generation. The program would then be suspended for at least a generation (longer if escapements are above a pre-determined threshold) repeating as needed. This will allow every generation of hatchery fish will have parents who all have gone through the natural selection process. I don't see this as much of an option for steelhead (long term freshwater rearing) but a viable option for something like sub-yearling Chinook.

4) Finally folks need to keep in mind the dominate factor limiting most of our depressed anandromous stocks is NOT hatcheries or even harvest but degraded habitats and an extended period of low marine survivals. That does not mean that we can ignore hatchery issues; just we need to keep them in some sort of context.

curt