That's why I ask the question can the hatcheries produce more fish than mother nature.
In the short term, yes. But at tremendous cost.
Over the long term, that production is unsustainable without a constant genetic infusion from WILD broodstock. So the bottom line is that
WILD fish must be conserved in order to have hatchery fish. I think people forget that every hatchery fish is technically the descendent of a WILD fish. Most also don't understand that WILD fish are required to maintain the hatchery machine. Without the constant infusion of wild brood, the hatch mutants become so horribly inbred that even with every advantage provided by the hatchery to promote their survival, they're so poorly adapted that they don't advance toward any meaningful adult recruitment. Before long, the returns are so poor, there aren't even enough adult recruits to meet brood needs for the next generation of hatchery production.
But stakeholders have become dependent (addicted?) on hatchery production to sustain business as usual. Without hatchery fish, we wouldn't be fishing... well at least not very much. And all that displaced fishing pressure would descend upon what few healthy wild runs remain. It doesn't take rocket science to figure out they wouldn't stay healthy for long under that scenario.
So we plug along with the mess we've made... each year, more users clamoring for even greater hatchery production to sustain the harvest machine. (Yeah we recs are a part of that "machine" too so don't anyone get too "holier than thou" about it).
The problem with increased hatch production is that half the surplus is automatically allocated to the tribes by federal treaty. How much harder would you be incentivized to work for your employer (hell even yourself) if Uncle Sam simply took half of every new dollar you earned? That's the position WDFW hatchery programs are faced with.
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"Let every angler who loves to fish think what it would mean to him to find the fish were gone." (Zane Grey)
"If you don't kill them, they will spawn." (Carcassman)
The Keen Eye MDLong Live the Kings!