Originally Posted By: bushbear
This is in contrast to the failure so far of the Seattle Public Utilities (SPU) sockeye hatchery program since the new Cedar River sockeye hatchery came on line in 2011. Instead of an annual sockeye fishery that we now have for Baker sockeye, our last Lake Washington sockeye fishery was in 2006. The department and SPU need to give restoring the extremely popular Lake Washington sockeye fisheries a higher priority and greater focus. Current management is working against fisheries.


I think this is an unfair or uneducated statement to make. SPU does not manage the Lake Washington sockeye fishery, the co-managers do. SPU could be producing twice as many fish as the Baker River project and still not provide enough fish for a Lake Washington fishery since the co-managers agreed on a ridiculous high escapement number of 350,000, before allowing a rec fishery. No single hatchery program can produce that kind of return.