The Sockeye runs returning to Lake Washington and the Cedar River stand a good chance of becoming much more predictable and much more robust if the Sockeye hatchery program under way is not stopped by the anti-hatchery crowd led by Washington Trout. Since Sockeye hatch and go immediately to the lake the argument that they interfere with and compete with the runs of Coho , Chinook and Steelhead in the river is erroneous and misleading. These runs are from stocks introduced to the river and lake many years ago and are therefore not native. The runs have adapted well and our area has benefitted tremendously from the fishery they provide in Lake Washington.

The opponents , including Washington Trout, need to answer some touch questions about their motives given the science on the table surrounding this issue. There are many reforms going on upriver with the Landsburg Dam allowing runs of Coho, Chinook and Steelhead to venture into prime habitat above the dam giving them spawning grounds not seen for decades. Sockeye will not be allowed up there. Sockeye will hatch low in the river and proceed directly to the lake leaving the best habitat for the wild runs of other species to rebound on their own. The biologists and the City of Seattle are studying the Chinook redds right now to pass along more sound scientific data concerning these fragile stocks.

Washington Trout has chosen to stay in the shadows on this one but people directly involved in the reforms going on are all unanimous in saying that WT has their hands all over supporting the opposition to this hatchery. This is a good program that even staunch environmentalists and anti-hatchery experts support. I would like to see a public statement for or against this program come into the light of day from WT.

What about the effects of the hatcheries?

Hatcheries are used to significantly improve the survival of eggs and juveniles by controlling conditions (and losses) associated with incubation and rearing. These increases can lead to much larger returns of adults.

Hatcheries can operate in many different ways that influence the kinds of effects and the level of associated risk. The Cedar River Hatchery Program is being developed to reduce the potential for adverse effects generally attributed to hatchery programs. While some differences are expected between hatchery and wild production, the measures described below and those incorporated in the operating protocols are intended to reduce the risk of significant adverse effects.

Learn more about the goals of the hatchery and who is involved.

Who is working on this project?

What are the Goals and Concepts?

What about the effects of the hatcheries?

What are the results of the present sockeye hatchery?

What is the adaptive management plan?

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This hatchery is an incubation facility so fry will be released soon after emergence. The fry will rear naturally in Lake Washington. Some studies have suggested that extended rearing in a hatchery may alter behavior of hatchery fish, making them less fit to survive. Longer holding periods increase the risk of disease problems as well.
A locally-adapted sockeye stock is being used. By using a locally-adapted stock, there is a better chance that the fish produced by the hatchery will have the timing and other genetically determined traits that are needed to be successful in Cedar River/ L. Washington system.

The hatchery will rely on a random mix of hatchery and naturally- produced sockeye for eggs each year. This allows certain natural selection pressures to help maintain a healthy and productive stock.

Long term monitoring to evaluate the hatchery's performance and effects. Approximately $4 million is committed to gather data on the key uncertainties about the program's performance and effects as identified in the adaptive management plan.

Commitment to analyze results using independent scientific review and to make changes when needed.

What do we know about the results of the present sockeye hatchery?
The operation of the interim sockeye hatchery at Landsburg since 1991 has provided opportunity to evaluate culture methods that are unique to sockeye culture and test their effectiveness. Methods that were developed in Alaska to control a viral disease (IHN virus) common to all sockeye populations have proven effective at the Landsburg site. In addition, useful information on incubator performance, water supply, incidence of virus, development rates, emergence timing and other parameters has been generated through the operation of the interim hatchery. This experience is valuable in guiding design and program decisions for the replacement hatchery.

All sockeye fry released from the Landsburg hatchery have been marked since the program began in 1991. These marked fish have provided the opportunity to identify hatchery-produced fish as they grow and ultimately return as adults. Recovery of the adult carcasses and removal of the marked bone (otolith) in the fish's head provides the basis for determining the origin of the fish through banding patterns that are established during incubation. Otolith marking and sampling have allowed the following analyses to be initiated:
Estimates of annual wild and hatchery sockeye fry production from the Cedar River. WDFW has completed estimates of outmigrants through 1999 and have preliminary estimates for 2000.

Surveys of Bear Creek, a northern tributary to Lake Washington, were done in three years (1998-2000) to determine to what extent hatchery-produced sockeye were straying into that system. The concern is that if the level of straying is too great, that the genetic composition of the Bear Creek sockeye population could be altered. WDFW issued a paper in January, 2001, entitled "Straying by Cedar River Hatchery-Produced Sockeye Salmon to Big Bear Creek, WA" by Kurt Fresh, Steve Schroder, Eric Volk and Jeff Grimm. No Cedar River hatchery marked fish were found among the 1,251 fish that were sampled during the three-year study period.

University of Washington investigators, using microsatellite loci, have examined the genetic relationships of sockeye and kokanee from the Lake Washington basin and from potential founder populations ("Investigations of Genetic Variability within and between Lake Washington Sockeye Salmon Populations using Microsatellite Markers", January 2000 by Paul Bentzen and Ingrid Spies). The paper describing results from the second year of work is in review.

Otoliths have been collected from carcasses in the Cedar River each year since 1995. Recent funding to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife permitted the otoliths to be read and analyzed. Results from the following analyses have not yet been finalized, but are expected soon.
· Effects on timing and release location of fry on spawning location of adult returns.
· Survival estimates of wild and hatchery fry
· Size of adults by sex and by origin
· Proportion of adult return to the Cedar River originating from hatchery releases
· Proportion of broodstock that was of hatchery origin.

This river which I fished since I was a little kid, always in my opinion needed a large hatchery. I'm no scientist, but it is real easy to see. Developments, lawn fetilizers, trash of all kinds!!!! The cedar is a nice little river that needs a hand from man, as we screwed it up, and a hatchery is not going to harm it much.

One thing that concerns me is access. 10++ years without fishermen on its banks, and they are talking about opening it again for trout, because of the salmon mortality rate from trout feeding on fry. I think home owners are going to pitch a real ***** as soon as they see fishermen.


chumster

I'm new around here, but as I see it some rivers need hatcheries, and some rivers can't support them. The rivers that have good, solid native runs, probably don't need a hatchery. In this case a hatchery seems like the best way to get a fishable run going and would impact "wild stock" little if at all. I don't understand the opposition.

Some of the opponents of hatcheries haven't met a hatchery they didn't want to close.

Great more hatchery fish that need to be harvested spells many more indian gill netts so they can get there 50% of the harvestable take. This spells thousands of dead incidental chinook coho and big sea run cutts.

Not to mention they want to open the Cedar to a kill fishery to thin out the resident large trout which are native to protect the intoduced Sockey fry. Many of the very much in trouble wild steelhead juveniles, (which are very aggressive) will also be killed.

It just dosent make sense to me. Kill native fish so an introduced stock can thrive. Build the introduced stock large enough consistantly to support a tribal and sport harvest at the expense of the wild stocks which have not been fixed yet.

It is my beliefe that Washington trout would not support such a thing because it would surely seal the coffin for the struggling native stocks.

i think they also believe the large cutthroat are eating steelhead smolts as well...

grandpa,why do you constantly use this forum to jab at wt. Every post you make involves taking a shot at them. Most of us here don't agree with all of their views either,but get a life

Larger resident cutts and rainbows have alway eaten juvenile salmon and steelhead. This is nothing new.

There was a bounty on Bull trout and Dollies at one time for eating juvenile salmon and steelhead.

Here is what it comes down to......

Does a hatchery for Sockey on the Ceder River benifit the native stocks of the Ceder River and Lake Washington or does it benifit the intrests of the human user groups.

I see dollar signs. This is not being done for good it is being done for money.

I can definately tell you the hatchery is not going in for the sporties. I can tell you that if it was only for sport fishing interest it would not even be considdered. This is only speculation.

After all we have been through and all we have learned from our mistakes and yet we have learned nothing.

RICHG and Skydriftin>?:

You are both WRONG!

Why is there even a debate about this?

Why should money and resources be put into a non native introduced stock where it does no good for the native species, (it dosent even matter if its not hurting the environment), when the money and resources could be spent on habitat and the rebuilding of native stocks in the Cedar or other rivers that need help around the state.

In a time when our State dosent have money to burn and many wild stocks of salmon and steelhead around our state could be extinct in 10 years we want to waste money for personal oportunity instead of putting it where it can do good.

But then agian personal oportunity is all that counts to most anyways.

true.... big resident trout have always eaten smolts..the cedar seems to have an imbalance of big trout though because there hasn't been a fishery on them in years...and that wouldn't be that big a deal if the system was pristine and there was ample steelhead escapement...but it seems that there not getting enough spawners back to keep up with the predation...that's why the fishery may open..not to protect sockeye smolts but to cut down on steelhead smolt predation....not perfect but maybe a thumb in the dike..i think it would be single barbless lures only no bait...the tribe may have started already i think but not much effort so far...

Why did the trout get so plentiful and big? You say because of lack of harvest. What a F*ckin joke!!!!!!!

They are big, fat, plentiful eating machines because of all the introduced Sockey. Lotts of Sockey spells lots of fry eggs and nutrients for bugs which makes big trout, and the more food the more trout.

Before we screwed things up most all rivers in our state had populations of large resident rainbows that liked to eat Juvenile fish. When happened to those rainbows. People caught them and ate them. Then we lost them and lost part of our steelhead runs.

Rich ...this ain't Montana..we are not known for our huge runs of large native Rainbows. There is plenty of river above the hatchery for the natives to swim around in free of any Sockeye predation (even though that is one of your mistakes). The Sockeye fry go straight to the lake and don't hang out in the river eating native steelhead and salmon fry. You are misguided blaming the sockeye hatchery for the predation you are crying about. The trout may be the culprit.

...i disagree..they've also grown fat and big on chinook and coho fry and eggs...be that as it may....now you have lots and lots of big big trout eating steelhead smolts...what do you do? closing steelhead fishing down hasn't increased escapement.. there continues to be a decline in steelhead smolts coming out...and i wonder if some of the donaldson rainbow's introduced to lake washington have had an effect on the trout's size ...are they that pure a strain after all?

Grandpa, what are you talking about. I never said the Sockey were eating the salmon and steelhead fry.

I said the Sockey are the food source for the large trout. and are what have caused the population of these trout to grow. The Sockey made the trout problem which has impacted the steelhead population in a bad way through predation.

All our rivers had populations of large resident trout. The populations were just not very big. Who knows maybe they were when there were lots of dead salmon in our rivers.

This is why we shouldnt screw with things. If mother nature wanted Sockey in the Cedar they would have been there. There was a reason they did not use that river. Who knows why but there must have been a good reason. We dont have a place to just start changing things that took tens of thousands of years to evolve the way they did.

Rich..that's exactly the problem though...humans have changed things over the centuries. We have rearranged what was here and we have screwed it up. What we are doing now is running around mitigat ing the damage we have done. The question about Sockeye not belonging in the Cedar is another debate. Now that they are here and are succeeding and their presence provides a viable fishery for 10's of thousands of people why not keep them? I think you are saying they harm wild fish...if not then what's wrong? The trout issue is a side argument to my original posting.

Does anybody remember when the Cedar river was last open for any type of fishery??I know its been a long time.

The reason that Sockeye aren't native to the Cedar is because the cedar river did not used to flow into Lake Washington. Befor the locks where built, the cedar flowed into the Black River which was the outlet of the lake. It flowed in right below the outlet. The Black then flowed into the Green creating the Duwamish (sp) River. But the locks made the lake level go dow by twenty to thirty feet. If you look at the area around Renton, it is very flat and the Black River used to be very sluggish. So with the black River gone, the Cedar either flowed into the lake or was routed to the lake by man.

As most of us know Sockeye smolts, exept with a few exeptions, need to stay in a large lake for a year before they go to the salt. This is why they are not native to the Cedar River

Correct me if some parts of this are wrong as I got this from sketchy sources.