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#1046580 - 01/27/21 09:22 AM Re: Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics [Re: Todd]
bushbear Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 08/26/02
Posts: 4709
Loc: Sequim
My contact advised that the screen at the Sutherland outlet is removed, but the concrete structure is still there. He said coho adults have been seen spawning in Falls Creek, a tributary to Lake Sutherland and that coho coho juveniles have been seen in the Lake. Maybe the sockeye/kokanee will start on their own.

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#1046582 - 01/27/21 09:53 AM Re: Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics [Re: bushbear]
Rivrguy Offline
River Nutrients

Registered: 03/03/09
Posts: 4393
Loc: Somewhere on the planet,I hope
The thing I find fascinating about fish genetics is how rapidly they change in reaction to environmental and harvest changes. Take Coho if you have a stream impacted by hatchery straying and other human activities and you stop human influence it takes only about three generations ( nine years ) for the genetic traits that environmental conditions dictate for Coho ( or salmon in general ) to evolve or be on their way so to speak. Steelhead have so many different variables in their life cycle from one place to another that it a rather difficult to point to any one thing being the damaging influence. That is the rub here as the answer is all the above which immediately crosses into a huge number of social and economic things that will likely doom many populations. You see it is easy to be and environmentalist when another carries the burden and the areas are rural. When it begins to to restrain or impede urban activities then then Steelhead rapidly become far less important to a vast majority of folks especially our elected officials.
_________________________
Dazed and confused.............the fog is closing in

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#1046586 - 01/27/21 11:41 AM Re: Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics [Re: Todd]
Carcassman Online   content
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7410
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
One of the nice things about natural selection is that it works if you give it a chance. Allow only wild-spawned fish to spawn in the wild in the future and you will get stocks adapted to the conditions. If the fish can adapt to the changing conditions. If not, extinction. But the concern about hatchery fish on the grounds is cured two ways. The first is don't put them there on purpose. The second is to overwhelm the few strays with naturally evolved spawners.

Nature is pitiless. If you aren't capable of survival, you die. End of genetic issues.

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#1046587 - 01/27/21 12:50 PM Re: Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics [Re: Carcassman]
Tug 3 Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 03/06/14
Posts: 260
Loc: Tumwater
Okay, now I will commit blasphemy! I think that salmon by some great design, are more adaptive than we know. Nature designed them to stray, to some extent, to replace fish that were eliminated by a catastrophic event. It seems to me, that by allowing large numbers of healthy returning hatchery fish, originally from the same basic stock, would bolster the number of spawners, which is what we need for recovery of "wild" stocks. Isn't that what one aspect of HSRG espoused?

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#1046604 - 01/27/21 03:51 PM Re: Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics [Re: Todd]
Carcassman Online   content
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7410
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
They are resilient Tug but consider that when in the hatchery they are selected for different freshwater traits. Maybe earlier return, they don't select their mates, they may incubate in warmer water, may rear in warmer water, never have to deal with a freshet/flood, and so on. All of these traits are inheritable.

That is why, basically, Chambers Creek steelhead suck in the wild. They were selected for a radically different FW environment. Salmon are not so bad, but the hatchery still is different.

Remember, too, that the stocks did evolve to use strays, but it was likely only a small fraction of the run. If strays make up the majority, then the majority is not well-adapted to the system.

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#1046637 - 01/28/21 09:00 AM Re: Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics [Re: Carcassman]
Tug 3 Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 03/06/14
Posts: 260
Loc: Tumwater
I don't disagree, C-Man. I guess I would suggest that in broodstock type hatchery cases, why can't we let the hatchery returns spawn with the returning "wild" stock?. I think one of the missing links of recovery is not having a good nutrient enhancement program on streams. Too often very few wild fish on the gravel means poor nutrients in the stream, which affects coho, steelhead, cutthroat, etc.

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#1046642 - 01/28/21 09:35 AM Re: Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics [Re: Todd]
Carcassman Online   content
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7410
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
It's a numbers game. Most, and by that I'd say at least 75-80% at least of the spawners have be be wild-born. Some fish with a hatchery background could then safely spawn.

You're right that current management criminally, in my mind, withholds nutrients.

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#1046650 - 01/28/21 10:34 AM Re: Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics [Re: Todd]
On The Swing Offline
Spawner

Registered: 02/06/03
Posts: 783
Tug the broodstock issue is a long and well played game but look at the QIN for example they plant numbers that rival the Cowlitz in the salmon river and, while they do get some good averaged size fish back, they don't really fight all that well, even the 25lbers..and the run is still coming back lower as time passes, reinforcing the research showing about lowered survival, fecundity and overall fitness of hatchery fish.
But it still comes down to the ocean numbers. Hatchery fish USED to give us a return rate of 3 to 5% of total planted...nowadays many are struggling to even break 1.5% return from plant count. Throwing more bodies on the pile, and spending a metric S ton to do it won't help the issues and could in fact just make it worse.
Einstein had it totally right in his definition of insanity and yet here we are.
_________________________
Fish gills are like diesel engines, don't run them out of fuel!

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#1046727 - 01/28/21 07:27 PM Re: Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics [Re: Todd]
Tug 3 Offline
Returning Adult

Registered: 03/06/14
Posts: 260
Loc: Tumwater
On the swing,

Thanks for your thoughtful post I was a participant on the Satsop broodstock collection project (20?) years ago. It seemed to me to be successful, but I have no idea of the numbers. Many years ago, in the mid 70's, I saw a remarkable rebuilding of the spring chinook run on the Kalama due to a change in hatchery rearing. John Clayton was the genius hatchery manager at Kalama Falls. He floated sheets of plywood on the raceways to give the juveniles a place to escape. Then he didn't let the employees step up to the ponds to feed, but kept them back at a distance so that the hatchery springers wouldn't get trained. Fish were fed at different times. This created a more natural condition, I think, and must have led to a higher survival rate. Over one cycle the run went from a few hundred to several thousand. I've wondered over the years why practices similar to that weren't adopted. It would seem to me that the more we mimic nature the more successful we would be.

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#1046742 - 01/29/21 08:16 AM Re: Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics [Re: Todd]
Carcassman Online   content
River Nutrients

Registered: 11/21/07
Posts: 7410
Loc: Olema,California,Planet Earth
Tug, I think research has shown that the more nature is mimicked in hatcheries, the "more fit" the fish are for the wild. I don't see how what happened at Kalama helped in that generation as the hatchery and wild fish were subject to the same conditions once released. That doesn't mean that John didn't produce fish that would do better in the river as fry.

But, at Minter, and at Tokul, when predator netting was installed the in-pond survival of coho and steelhead went way up. It went up so much at Minter that the "rolled the pond" (lost a lot of fish) because they didn't know of the loss of fish. Not only birds, but rats. Sounds to me like Kalama had a much higher release as they lost fish they were unaware of.

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