Tug,

Unless things have changed markedly, hatcheries typically take excess eggs if they receive more than the minimum number of broodstock required for their production goals. The reason has always been that losses during the egg to ponded fry stage could be higher than normally experienced, and the excess eggs would cover, or help cover, the loss. So if six hatcheries had extra eggs, or sac fry at this stage of development, then 2.75 million fry surplus to those hatcheries needs is a good partial buffer for offsetting the loss at Minter.

As for the mongrel hodge podge stock, don't fret. PS hatchery fall Chinook are likely somewhere in the range of being 99% pure Green River hatchery stock. The salmon hatchery at Sooes Creek on the Green River is one of the oldest in the state and in PS. So whenever a new PS hatchery was built, instead of capturing native broodstock from within the watershed of the new hatchery, the easiest way to start was to simply import some eyed eggs that were surplus to the needs at Sooes Creek, and start of new hatchery fall Chinook run on the river getting the new hatchery. So moving eggs or fry from one PS hatchery to another doesn't upset the "balance of nature" very much at all.

Before ESA, letting surplus returns of hatchery fish spawn naturally was SOP. Now with ESA WDFW has to limit the % of hatchery origin spawners (HOS) that spawn naturally with the "wild" Chinook in that river, even when most of those wild Chinook are progeny of the previous generation of HOS.