The following was extracted directly from the front page of Washington Trout's website:

I am offering this in the context of the best salmon fishing season I have seen in many years with more wild fish showing up than in recent memory. Washington Trout is a radical animal rights extremist organization bent on closing all the hatcheries in Washington and other states. The newest weapon they are employing is the review process granted to them as a result of the "settlement" of the lawsuit they filed against WDFW, the director of WDFW and the members of the WDFW commission. The settlement resulted in a big cash payday for WT and gave them a new way to try to force their narrow agenda on the rest of us. Their conclusions are thinly veiled as based on a comprehensive review but their conclusions are the same as their predetermined "cause"..close all hatcheries to save wild fish...or so they claim. I claim that WT is not a fishing organization but an animal rights group of left wing radicals who ultimately would like to close all fishing except catch and release fly fishing from kayaks or from shore.

Here is what their website says on the front page:


Washington Trout Comments on WDFW Puget Sound HGMPs



On August 1, a six-week public comment period ended for 79 salmon and steelhead Hatchery and Genetic Management Plans (HGMPs) developed by Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife for submission to the National Marine Fisheries Service. Washington Trout prepared and submitted comments regarding HGMPs for WDFW’s chinook, coho, and steelhead hatchery programs in Puget Sound. We found the HGMPS inadequate to warrant ESA authorization, and recommended that WDFW withdraw them for significant revision, and/or consider scaling back or discontinuing its Puget Sound hatchery program.



After reviewing all the chinook HGMPs and all the coho and steelhead HGMPs, WT identified several general concerns that run throughout all or many of the documents. These include our assessment that:

In general, the HGMPs fail to adequately describe clear program goals, justifications, performance standards and indicators, or adequately detailed monitoring and evaluation protocols or timetables;
A number of erroneous and/or unsupported assumptions run throughout the HGMPs;
Many of the HGMPs contain critical deficiencies and omissions;
There is a consistent failure to quantify, as required, the estimated take of listed Puget Sound chinook;
The overall size of the chinook hatchery program in Puget Sound is far too large with respect to any reasonable “acceptable levels” of competition, predation, and related genetic and ecological impacts upon indigenous wild chinook;
The overall size of the coho and steelhead hatchery programs in Puget Sound are far too large with respect to any reasonable “acceptable levels” of competition, predation, and ecological impacts upon indigenous wild chinook;
The HGMPs are often in direct conflict with critical elements of WDFW’s own Wild Salmonid Policy.

Grandpa I have 2 questions for you..

! did you read any of the HGMP's?

2. if you did read them what specifics did WDFW lay down as things they would do to protect the endangered runs of wild Puget Saound Chinook???

I read the HGMP's and found them astoundingly vague. There is nothing specific that WDFW is planning on doing to rectify anyof the KNOWN problems with their hatcheries.

I would suggest that you know nothing about WT or it's membership. You only base your opinions of false assumptions of who these people are and what they want.

WT should just stop B******g and compromise on everyone's standards; not their own. They should just let us catch the hatchery fish and release all wild fish, which is going to happen in the next few years anyway.

washington trout can only try to make the state obide by the rules that were set for hatcheries within the esa system, they cant close any, i would say your problem isnt with washington trout its with the people who wrote the rules that they are trying to make the state follow, why dont you do some research and find out why the rules were put there in the first place, oh ya, i know why, so everyone could ingore them

Rob Allen Listen UP!!!

Your opinions above all others on this board are , in my opinion, not worth listening to. You are the most diehard WT supporter next to Ramon. Your views are radical, extreme and filled with anger for your opponents. Your vision of fishing is narrow and self-serving.

My view is that salmon are on the rebound slow but sure and spending so much time trying to tear down a system and ultimately eliminate it while draining taxpayer money in the process to support your selfish cause is shameful and worthy of scorn by all sensible people.

Obviously I don't agree with your socialist views and your elitist attitude when it comes to fishing. I strongly disagree with WT and that group's disguise of their real goals which are not noble but very selfish.

Again I say to you and all of the WT elite: Go salmon fishing and see for yourself why I say this is one of the best years in memory for returning salmon, wild and hatchery.

No ...fishing with a fly rod for hatchery trout at a private boutique C&R fishing hole or private ranch doesn't count.

Went right over your head huh Boater? If WT was really in the business of trying to improve hatcheries I would listen but they are unabashedly on a campaign to close them ALL down. Just my opinion.....

Grandpa

Thank you for totally ignoreing my honest questions. Also you don't know anything about me or my politics. I am most defenitly not a socialist and resent being called that as a small business owner.
You are alsi mischarecterizing what WT wants. WT wants there to be salmon for the distant future.. The science is cryatal clear that the only way that will happen is if wild fish stocks are restored hatchery fish cannot and have never done it.
Your charecterization of WT would be like me charecterizing PSA as a group that only cares about pumping out as many hatchery fish as possible so sport anglers can harvest as many as they want.. I don't charecterize them that way because i know that in not how their membership feels. Likewise Washington Trout isn't about closing hatcheries it's about saving the few wild fish left in the state!!

While your gloating about how great this years salmon runs have been and tearing down Washington Trout down here in Southwest washington we are having absolutely terrible returns of both wild and hatchery summer steelhead this on the heels of the worst winter run in recent years. Meanwhile Washington Trout is working in cooperation with angling groups to restore salmon habitat on the Washougal river..

before you wrongfully badmouth WT I wanna know what you are doing to help salmon?? But if you'd like to put your money where your mouth is meet me on the East Fork Lewis next Saturday morning bring a shovel and a wheelbarrow.

Rob thanks for not calling me an idiot..you're making progress on the anger thing. Let's just say I totally disagree with you about your politics and your stand on opposing hatcheries. I disagree about WT's motives and don't believe a word you say in defense of them... and I am talking about salmon fishing so the topic of steelhead /trout has not come up from me. Lots of evidence on the this board of fantastic salmon fishing in your area this summer ...I bet the fish will fill the rivers this fall..unless too many are netted. Maybe if your steelhead were not commercially harvested both on purpose and as bycatch their stocks would rebound too. I have first hand experience this summer of releasing 5 to one wild over hatchery salmon as well.

Your wild only boutique fishing idea is just bunk. Sorry but that's the way I see it.

Washington Trout is ALL ABOUT closing hatcheries. To say it isn't is dishonest.

I support Washington Trout, and the destruction of all hatcheries, or the reform of those hatcheries so that wild fish are not harmed.

Long live the wild salmon and steelhead! Long May they Run!

WT is full of .... !!! Let take a look at the Blackmouth Program... the State was suppose to reach a goal of releasing 3M juvenile Chinook a year by 2000. As a matter of fact, we have only hit 2M in the last 3 years. Now budget cuts, probably due to the settlement, closed 2 big hatcheries in the South Sound. McCallister Creek- released 300,000 juveniles a year-gone. Couple this with Percival Cove not being able to renew the pollution permit and we have a total of 500K. This is 25% of the entire program throughout the Puget Sound! BS! The Coulter Creek hatchery also closed.. a main staple of South Sound Silvers...

Predation? Marine mammals- it is a big problem already and going to get worse. It has already left a big dent in the herring stocks! That statement is far from the truth WT..

If anything, the hatcheries have made a huge impact for sport/commercial fishing the last couple years. Especially with the US/Canadian agreement... Look at the numbers! It is black and white.

What is WT going to do when we don't have any fish left to catch? Who going to support you? I probably take up knitting!

I have no opinion regarding WT's ultimate objective, be it saving wild salmon or closing hatcheries.... But.... if they are really concerned about saving wild salmon and steelhead, they need to focus a lot more on the nets (tribal and non-tribal).
I have witnessed so many wild steelhead and salmon taken with these nets in the Columbia River. It is just unimaginable that an endangered species would be allowed to be netted and groups like WT remain silent on that, but not other destructive practices.

MC

DR.....You should write to Tony Floor, formerly with the WDFW and now with NW Marine Trade Association. He is very knowledgeable on the reasons for the situation with the Puget Sound blackmouth program's decline.

In all fairness to WT, they have in the past worked on decreasing the gill net devastation to our fish runs. They have also worked on habitat related issues and programs.

While WT is apparently hell-bent on closing our hatcheries supposedly to save wild fish the sportsmen and women of this state have proven their ability to catch and release wild fish this summer. Thanks, in part to Norm Dicks, we have an expanded mass marking program that is working well,too. We have also had some good luck with the ocean conditions which have helped fish runs tremendously. Programs to reduce the commercial fleet have been showing results in lowering harvest. Canada and the US settled disputes and have implemented fishing restrictions that have resulted in much higher returns in the last two years especially.

Abolishing all the hatcheries like WT wants is an extreme measure as suing WDFW to get their own way was an extreme measure.. Wild fish will not miraculously rebound if that happens any more than removing all the dams will. Removing all the people from Washington and shipping us all to Idaho would help. Tearing down all the freeways and houses and factories and schools would help too. Should we do that next? To save "wild" fish?

Instead of reading the paper this morning I read the 100 page report put together by Washington Trout in response to the WDFW proposed HGMPs to NMFS. All their studies and inspections of the hatcherys mirtaculously came to the same conclusions that WT had in the first place.Imagine that! WOW.

Here is a snippet from Ramon's term paper:

" The HGMP's consistently fail to discuss why it is socially, economically or biologically necessary , advisable, or even beneficial to provide fish for harvest..."

Nice job Ramon

Pretty much sums it up doesn't it? No need to provide fish for harvest.

If all of youse people can keep this a civil discussion (like no name calling or left wing/right wing politics) I would love to leave this up. Remember that just because somebody disagrees with you, it doesn't make them wrong

Jerry

Thanks for the warning....I know you tend to side with Ramon and WT..or atleast I think you do so letting the discussion go on would be good. If someone disagrees with me I can think they are wrong but agree that they are not difinitively wrong...remember that most of this is opinion. Except for the part about the fishing this summer which I hope you can agree was and still is phenomenal.

Looks like its time for another round of boycott letters to the WT suporters. The list is still on there website.

Grandpa this hasn't been a discussion.. It's been you just going off on Washington Trout.. if you want this to be a discussion read my first post and answer the questions.