I was wondering something..If they open a river because the native steelhead population is healthy enough for retention..Why cant these fish be moved to a river that the run isn't so healthy? Would this be possible to do?Seems to me if it is then why open it for retention?

I would think it could be possible..That way some of the other rivers have a chance in having a healthy run some day also!!

TM

TM, that would be similar to making one of the most prevalent mistakes of the hatchery programs over the decades - mixing genetic stocks between rivers. It weakens the gene pool so the fish don't adapt as well to a particular watershed, cutting down it's long term productivity rather than enhancing it.

This is what concerns many of us about 'Bama's Hey_Yall shopping for babes at WA Walmart stores! He potentially could weaken the gene pool of the NW. Can you imagine a 'Bama-Walmart crossbreed wandering around the area? That's kinda how the fish thang is too.

RT

Why not then put the fish in rivers that doesnt have any wild steelhead that use to years back..There wouldnt be any mixing...

Well for one. That assumes there are rivers in Washington that have healthy runs. Ans secondly that goes against everything that WDFW steelhead managers believe. Make no mistake WDFW steelhead managers do not care about wild steelhead they want hatcheries and MSY! Hopefully the comission will give the department it's marching orders with WSR cause we certainly gave the comission thier marching orders.

RA3
Since when does common sense or what the public wants, play any part in what WDFW does???

Fishhead5

I'll be the first to admit I'm not an expert, but I thought it wasn't simply the mixing of genes that was the issue, but rather the mixing of a gene pool (the hatchery fish) that had been bred for success in a hatchery enviornment, with a gene pool that had evolved for successful growth in a wild environment. The theory was/is that the hatchery genes may conflict with the wild genes, yielding some young that will be less successful in the wild.

Hatchery fish have been selected both inadvertantly and intentionally, for traits such as success in growing in crowded conditions, returning at the same time each year, and not needing to know how to make a redd. These are the types of traits that seem like they would create problems if allowed to mix into wild gene pools.

Now, if you're transplanting wild fish between watersheds that have similar environmental characteristics, I don't see the same risk in that, as the fish should be successful, and not weaken any of the previously existing wild fish. In fact, I think you might see a strengthening of the breed over time. Animal breeders introduce lines from outside their current line all the time, to increase the vigor of the strain.

In fact, wild strains from adjacent rivers stray all the time, and have been mixing the gene pools for millenia, which is how the runs spread to begin with.

So I think Timberman's suggestion has some merit. As a matter of fact, I'd like to see the state pay my expenses for a hook and line recovery program, so that I can personally select the biters for mixing into other gene stocks. Can I get some support for a letter writing campaign to support this?

I think TM's idea has some merit. How about transfering fish within the same ESU. A good example would be enhancing the Humptulips with some "wild" steelhead from the Quinalt. Doughtful this will do too much gene pool damage when both rivers run side by side....

I'll have to agree with TM's idea having merit....especially with HW's addition to the idea. No it shouldn't be used as a tool similar to the hatchery one's that helped get us in this mess...but there may be cases where it could be effective and may be the only way to restore wild steelies in certain rivers. Take the Dosie and Duck as examples....the wild runs in these two rivers probably aren't much above a 100 fish each. The habitats essentially untouched but the runs that supported one of my oldtimer friends glory years of several hundred released fish per season and 34 fish days.The remnant stocks are likely incapable of restoring themselves and normal hatchery supplementation of course just isn't making it. Only answer I can see is along the lines of TM's idea.

One thing for all to consider is the dangers of becoming locked into the trap of "orthodoxy" when approaching problem solutions. The hatchery "orthodoxy" is on the way out...fine...but I'm concerned the new one may not be the solution to every problem either.

Gooose

We should work to preserve healthy runs and restore depressed runs as many ways as possible without screwing with the gene pool. The second you start playing God, to say, is the second those fish are no longer native.

Just because a river is an ESU or rivers are side by side does not mean the fish are genetically similar enough to cross breed to propgrate a river's native steelhead population without changing the genetic makeup of that steelhead population.

Hell, fish that spawn in certain sections of rivers can be distinct in behavior, appearance etc.

As others mentioned, if fish are moved at all, it should only be to adjacent or nearby watersheds. However, what's to keep the transported fish in the river it is transported to? It will recognize its new environment as the wrong river and very likely drop downstream, even into the ocean, to resume the search for its home river. Some fish transported this way will accept the new home and spawn there, but most probably won't.

This technique was actually done with chinook salmon that tried to return above Grand Coulee Dam on the Columbia River during project construction. The fisheries people ended up constructing a weir on Nason Creek, a tributary of the Wenatchee River, to force the chinook to stay there and spawn, as it was their nature to try to drop downstream and seek their natal waters upstream of Grand Coulee.

Another possibility, although not extremely productive, would be to take such excess natives from a healthy population and spawn them, artificially incubate the eggs, or plant them as eyed eggs in selected tributary streams, or stock the steelhead fry in selected streams. Fry stocking that adheres to a strict protocol can yield smolt production of about 2 to 3% of the number of fry stocked.

If possible, I think the best way to recover a run is to relax the harvest pressures on it and let the remaining population bounce back in a cycle or two. But if there are few or no natural spawners remaining, then TM's suggestion with suitable modifications, has merit.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Salmo g.-

You make good points and also must be noted that there is a stray rate for steelhead, as high as 5% from the reports that I've read...

Anyways, I fear this idea as we might get the jumbled up genetic mess steelhead that is typical of the 'wild' fish of the Upper Columbia system. When Grand Coulee was built, returning adult steelhead were trapped at Wells Dam and spawned. These fish were then planted in the Upper Columbia, because of this the native steelhead of the Wenatchee are now extinct and the wild fish of today are of little resemblence to the pre-Grand Coulee native steelhead.

Its tough one though and to tell you the truth I am fascinated by steelhead genetics. If I have enough motivation and rod and reel do not pull me too far away that is what I want to study in grad school.

Not gettin all tech. about it was more or less a question...Hard for me to believe that the genetics would cause much of a problem but I havent studied steelhead genetics in school I would think that getting a native run started verses NO native run is a good thing...but we wouldn't want a run of fish with an arm growing out it's back

[ 12-11-2001: Message edited by: Timber Man ]

Eliminating the catch and kill fisheries has not helped the wild runs here in southwesy washington because it came about 15 years too late and any positiveimpact WSR had was offset by the Skamania hatchery.

Here is the key to restoring our wild salmon/steelhead runs , nothing else has ever worked and there is no reason to think, at least in my opinion, that anything else can work: Wild and native stocks in their home rivers with good habitat and reproductive isolation.(no hatchery fish in the spawning /rearing habitat)

I know a lot of guys wil dislike what I am going to say so I will give a little backround why i think the way I do.

I grew up on the Washougal which until the 1960'd had 1500 wild summer steelhead.
The Washougal watershed saw 2 major forest fires, massive copper and silver mining massive splash dams, 3 dams without fish passage and a grist mill, Overharvest by sport anglers and a paper mill pumping toxic waste into the river.. Through all this wild steelhead persisted in reletively abundant numbers.
Then in the 1960's the Skamania hatchery was built. Imediatly the numbers of wild fish began to drop by the 1980's wild steelhead counts showed numbers in the very low hundreds often under 100 adults. It was 1986 when WSR was inacted here in Southwest Washington and there has been no trend towards recovery.

Like it or not guys Hatcheries are a MAJOR!!!!! roadblock to wild steelhead recovery!!! On rivers like the Washougal I do not believe the run can be salvaged without the elimination of the hatchery run.