Steeliedrew,

A wild broodstock program would result in an increased harvest rate on the remaining wild steelhead population. Smalma is absolutely right in that the existing (or was existing until a few weeks ago) Chambers Ck hatchery stock program had far lower adverse impact on the wild population than a wild broodstock hatchery program would have. The risk, IMO, is that policy managers might "declare" that wild broodstock hatchery fish and wild steelhead are genetically the same, and that therefore the mixing of hatchery and wild steelhead on the spawning grounds is OK. That is the policy position some tribes have adopted, but from a biological perspective, it just ain't so. Biology and ecology don't care about and don't accept policy declarations. IMO if WDFW and NMFS adopt that position, then functional extinction does become the most likely outcome.

As far why not turn the Cowlitz back into the hatchery blood hole it was for 3 decades, it's because so far there is no legal avenue for exempting it from ESA constraints and turning it, or any other river, into a sacrificial hatchery circus. Like it or not, feasible or not, the agencies are locked into trying to recover wild chinook, chum, and steelhead on the Cowlitz River.

Sg