The "retaining hatchery steelhead" thread has been very educational for all. Thought I'd start a related topic that should also generate some lively discussion. I have heard differing opinions on the "correct" way to plant a steelhead stream in terms of run-timing.

Is it better compress the plants to return with early run-timing so as to minimize interactions with later-arriving wild stocks?

Or is it better to spread the hatchery return over a greater diversity of run-timing to increase harvest opportunity over a longer season?

Does the answer change if the plant is strictly from wild broodstock?

I think the wild steelhead obsession is why steelheading is so bad in Western Washington.
No one wants hatchery fish. The Indians don't. The commercials don't. And the purist spotsman don't, so you end up with nothing because wild runs cannot suppport the numbers of fishermen out there.

A well run "Broodstock" program would get my vote. We'd still have hatchery fish for the taking and they would be of much higher quality. If they were of "nate" origin the run timing wouldn't be so critical. In order to make a program work the volunteers would have to be committed and walk the talk, and the state and tribal fisheries managers would have to trust the effort.

Go on down to Blue Creek or Reiter or the Wynoochee and then come on back and tell THAT line again.

Well, to answer your question directlty I would prefer a spread on hatchery returns. My reasoning is that yes some would spawn with native fish but the strongest would survive making a longer run with eventually stronger fish throughout the run. This is how species have survived. If the gene pool is so shallow for the hatchery fish then you have add to the mix somewhere and this would allow for nature to have a bigger part in the mixing.

Remember, that broodstock programs can potentially be pandora's box for when it come to the wild fish. With the introduction of broodstock programs, i.e Satsop/Wynooche, etc. word on the street is the tribes will pressure to put the nets in get their 50% of the harvestable run later in the season at the expense of wild fish returning. A good number of anglers seem to believe that wild broodstocks programs are just great. What I want to know is the major goals of these programs, to create more hatchery fish or to aid in the recovery of a wild run? If it's the latter how come we think we can do it better than the fish? If it's just to create hatchery fish don't we have enough hatchery programs as it is? It's funny how there are never any stated goals or objectives when it comes to these programs, why is that?

Right on Dan,
I couldnt agree more, yes there are some systems where the hatchery stock pales in comparison with the wild/native stock (Bogey comes to mind), but thats not always/mostly the case. The Nooch and Cow seem to kick out some very aggressive "brats". I can remember many very exciting hookups on both those rivers that will rival any other steelheading experience.
I approach hatchery and wild/native steelheading differently but both definately have a place. I would prefer to keep an earlier hatchery run and later wild run. I think if it were to go to a more spread out approach, more people (on a whole) would be likely to keep a wild fish due to lack of oppurtunity to keep a true hatchery fish earlier in the season.

RL

RE: "No one wants hatchery fish".

Not to pick on this comment, but we need to keep in mind that your average fisherman does not have the experience, expertise or success that many of you have had on steelhead.

The majority of you here are "hardcore" steelheaders, and forget (maybe) that many are just now entering the time when they are able (physically, financially and time wise) to learn how to pursue steelhead.

Your success and knowledge gained about this resource are to be greatly respected, but there are thousands who fish yearly for steelhead whose success is no where near yours, nor may it ever be. I know a bunch of fellows that have fished for steelhead off and on for years...hooked a couple but never yet brought one to the beach. Others that have caught one or two over the years, and still others looking to get that first hook-up.

Personally speaking, I would be overjoyed in catching a hatchery fish. Not as "elite" perhaps as a wild fish , but all the same it is a fish that grew (mostly) in the river, went to sea and spent time to grow, dodging seals, sea lions etc., munching all the treats the ocean had to offer and is now back where he started...meaner, bigger and looking to make more of his kind. Sounds like a steelhead to me.

These resources are managed for all fishermen, and while some of us get the chance to fish more, or we manage our lives to allow more time to fish and spend the time/effort and cash to learn, not everyone can attain the skill of some of you, and would be overjoyed at a hatchery or wild fish.

Not getting down on anyone...just offering a different perspective.

Mike B (a hardcore rookie)

I love to catch hatchery steelhead because I love to eat steelhead. Mike B brought up a related issue in a different thread and it really caused me to remember why the State tried to get an early return on hatchery steelhead. They really wanted the Tribes to target those fish and it has worked. The Tribal fishery is very much front loaded with effort being reduced as the wild fish come in. However, nature created a widely dispersed wild run in terms of timing and that early component of wild fish is virtually gone. One more reason that the wild fish remains the best hope for long term recovery of the resource.

I THOUGHT THE IDEA WAS TO MINIMIZE HATCHERY GENE INTROGRESSION INTO WILD GENE POOLS. . .

My biggest concern with this issue is how hatchery/wild interaction has been shown to diminish overall wild productivity. It seems any "natural" spawning by hatchery fish yields exceedingly few returning adults. In the meantime, hatchery spawners compete with wild spawners for prime spawning gravel, and the juvenile progeny of those hatchery spawners compete with wild fry for a limited amount of riverine carrying capacity.

The other big concern is how the presence of harvestable hatchery stocks means that a fishery will be created to harvest those stocks. Since half of that harvest (you know which half) is completely non-selective, wild fish will inevitably also perish in that fishery.

Seems to me that no matter how you slice it, the co-existence of hatchery and wild steelhead always works against the wild fish. This is supported by the observation that almost no early-run wild fish are left in rivers that have been heavily planted with early-returning hatchery fish. The fisheries that target those hatchery fish take too many wild fish, and those that actually manage to escape must compete with uncaught hatchery fish for spawning and rearing habitat.

Broodstock programs are really not much better when this same analysis is applied. Perhaps you might get a slightly better fish in terms of reproductive fitness (actually don't know if that is true or if it has even been studied) but if they return with a clipped adipose fin, then a fishery will be waiting for them upon arrival. Again, since half the harvest is completely non-selective, more wild fish would perish.

My vote for the "correct" stocking strategy is to limit plants only to those rivers with remnant or non-existent wild populations. Stock the crap out of them! Any stream with a viable population of wild fish should not be stocked. Hatchery fish should be retained in any stream they are caught to help minimize the negative effects of straying. No retention fisheries on wild stocks until escapement goals have been assured, nets included.

The error of our past ways has clearly declared itself. Let's stop trying to fix things with tools we already know don't work. Our wild steelhead deserve no less.

fishNphysician

In your comments, above, you stated:

" It seems any "natural" spawning by hatchery fish yields exceedingly few returning adults."

I don't doubt the fact of this statement, but is there a resource which shows the methodology by which they gathered this data?

Seems to me if they had a "managed/natural" spawn then it really wouldn't be all that natural. Also, since the returning adults from this "natural" spawn of hatchery fish would not be clipped or otherwise marked...how did they know whose kid was whose?

Again, not doubting your data, but any direction towards empirical studies would be helpful.

Mike

Mike B

Look at the references cited in S malma's last post on the other thread (retaining hatchery steelhead).

Thanks Doc and Smalma...

I'll gladly do some add'l web researching to see if there are other articles/studies available.

Mike

fN, I vote for keeping the hatchery winter steelhead seperated from the wild fish in their run timing. I also think that "imprinting" should be looked at closer. I've mentioned this on other threads however if there were more concerted effort to imprint the hatchery parr/smolt to specific return sites the adult fish could be collected or harvested at these areas much like they do at terminal areas like Reiter or Blue Creek. This would further reduce interaction with the wild fish. Another advantage, if the tribes would agree, would be to do all commercial harvest at these return sites via traps rather then netting mixed stock (hatchery & early wild) fish in the lower portion of the rivers. I realize that some straying will occur however I think "imprinting" the parr/smolts to specific sites rather than releasing them all over the drainage would help minimize hatchery and wild interaction.

Mike B,

I think this is the technique used on the Kalama...

First, if you're not familiar with the river, there is a waterfall that blocks upstream migration. They put a plastic barrier on the waterfall, too, just to make sure that no fish could jump it.

All the fish that went beyond that waterfall were weighed, measured, named and numbered, DNA sampled, and released.

This included both wild and hatchery fish.

When the smolts came back down the river, they were collected in smolt traps. Not only could they tell if a particular smolt was wild/wild, hatchery/hatchery, or hatchery/wild, they could even tell that a particular smolt came from "Wild Hen #24" and "Hatchery Buck #16".

The smolt sampling done at this point showed that all three crosses had good egg to smolt survival.

When those smolts returned as adults, the only adults that came back were the wild/wild ones, statistically speaking.

I think that's pretty much it, in a nutshell.

The implications are as follows:

1. Wild fish always do it better, no matter how well we think we're doing it in the hatchery.

2. Hatchery fish can spawn in the wild, and can do it with wild fish. The problem with this is two fold. First, HxH crosses produce smolts that compete with the WxW smolts for food and space, but don't ever become adults. This is an unnecessary restriction on wild fish productivity. Second, not only do WxH crosses also do that same thing, they also remove a wild fish's genes from the gene pool for that year's run. If a hatchery fish spawns with a wild fish, that wild fish is as good as bonked...it's eggs or sperm almost never translate into an adult fish.

This doesn't just apply to Chambers Creek or Skamania hatchery fish...studies show that two fish taken out of the wild to produce broodstock program fish produce more smolts due to the hatchery protections, but return less adults than the two wild fish would have done if just left in the river.

Not only do they produce less fish, the ones they do produce are clipped hatchery fish that are harvested.

Again, it's the same as bonking two wild fish in order to gain a few (literally a few) hatchery fish for harvest.

Fish on...

Todd.

Todd:

"All the fish that went beyond that waterfall were weighed, measured, named and numbered, DNA sampled, and released."

I had to figure that all the technology available would be brought into use. By using the DNA markers no doubt they could tell exactly whose kid was whose!

If the fish, genetically, are the same, then clearly there are other factors (like attitude?) that enter into the equation of the w/h crosses that survive the smolt stage but show such a poor (if any) return as adult fish, where the w/w fish do so much better. Sounds like Darwin might have been right about some things.

You explanation makes perfect sense, Todd. Many thanks for the most understandable info.

Mike

I think that by now the lines between wild fish and hatchery fish are so blurred as to be almost nonexistant. How many years did the state pump out unmarked hatchery fish? How many years have those hatchery fish had to 'hybridize' (if that's even an applicable term here) with wild fish? At this point, I wouldn't be surprised if every single steelhead and salmon, whether it came from the truck or the stream, were a mutt.

I would prefer an all wild system even if it meant not fishing for 6 years.

Other than that I feel as long is there are hatcheries sport fisherman will be fighting like dogs for the scraps of fish left until the system crashes. Unless we choose one way or the other. Just as we do trying to sustain a commercial fishery with hatcheries for Salmon and appease several groups with the left overs. One good year does not mean a rebound like most here tend to think.

That just simply isn't true. It may make sense, but it's not backed up with fact. Hatchery fish may spawn with wild fish, but their offspring don't survive to spawn themselves, so the mixed genetic material isn't carried on to future generations of fish.

The main concern is that wild fish spawn unsuccessfully with hatchery fish, rather than spawning successfully with another wild fish. That takes a wild fish out of the mix.

Todd

You say;" Would you like to explain how the Cowlitz FHMP is going to work if what you have said is true? If it is true, why would both NMFS and WDFW and Trout Unlimited agree to how they are going to use "hatchery" fish for recovery on the Cowlitz?

Cowlitzfisherman

CFM,

The jury is out on how well hatchery fish can or can't help recover wild runs.

While all of the science shows that the interaction of wild and hatchery fish generally does not pass on any genetic material from the hatchery fish, there are specific situations where it has worked, to some extent.

It's a bit like talking apples and oranges, though, when we talk about those examples.

Situation one is the S.Fk. Skykomish above Sunset Falls. A fish trap and trucking program has opened up dozens of miles of spawning habitat that was previously not accessible by anadromous fish.

While there are no "native" anadromous fish up there, there are now wild, self-supporting runs of steelhead, silvers, chinook and pinks.

These runs don't have any native fish competition, nor any harvest fisheries, at least up there. The habitat is also in super shape, and there is a lot of it.

I'm not sure what the difference is with those runs...the fish that established those runs were mainly wild fish in the case of the salmon, but mainly hatchery fish in the case of the steelhead. Only time will tell, but it seems to be working pretty well so far.

Another example is the massive stocking of rivers such as the Methow and the Wenatchee, and others in the critical habitat of the endangered steelhead over there. They're supposed to be "supplemental" fish, those who are intended to spawn and create more "wild" fish. I haven't seen much that says it is working or that it's not...just that they get a lot of hatchery fish back, and that there still aren't very many wild fish.

A third would be the upper Cowlitz fish. I guess only time will tell there, too, if using hatchery stock to replenish wild runs will work. It looks like there are quite a few silvers and steelhead making it back up there.

The evidence is pretty clear that non-local hatchery fish, as they go through the generations, become less and less productive, even in the hatcheries. Look at PS hatchery winter run steelhead for evidence of that.

Using fish that are close to local fish may not have very good productivity, but maybe it will improve over several generations.

I guess the dependent factor will be if the numbers can reach a point where they can do more than just replace themselves (S.Fk Sky), and that they don't hit the point where they can no longer replace themselves (PS hatchery winter runs).

I think that using hatchery fish to help help out recovery of wild fish may have a few different reasons, like...

1. It might work.
2. It requires hatchery fish.
3. Hatchery fish are there for harvest, too, so fisheries are able to take place.

If they didn't use hatchery fish, then they'd be better off to stop stocking hatchery fish and stop fishing over the runs. I think we all know that would work better than anything else, assuming there's some habitat to use, than anything we can do with hatcheries.

However, that would mean no commercial fisheries and no sport fisheries...and that wouldn't fly politically.

Fish on...

Todd.

We all know that fish are 95% instinct and 5% experience. Nature has given them their survival instincts for millions of generations. Now those survival instincts are somehow negated by one generation raised in concrete tanks? To me, that doesn't make sense. Many other animals that rely on instinct have been re-introduced successfully to the wild. And that's basically the same thing that happens with hatchery fish. They raise them in captivity, and toss them out into the wild streams. The same happens with other gamefish such as bass, and they don't have any trouble reproducing. The carp and walleye that inhabit the big C originally came from hatcheries or captive stock, and they haven't had a problem reproducing either.

Do hatchery salmon reproduce with other wild salmon? That's the question. Going off of experience with other animals indicated that they would. I'm interested in where these facts come from. Can anyone point out specific studies?

You need to understand evolution to know the difference. It is little about their instinct and more about natural selection. The weaker genetic fish have been allowed to get to a place in their life cycle that they would not have been allowed by nature had they been raised 100% wild . They would have died. So you are increaseing the likelyhood of passing on traits that have been removed from wild fish breeding naturally. It can only mean a weaker fish strain. Conditioned responses like coming to the surface to look for food because thier food is broadcast into the pen and holding in open water regardless of bird predation have not been proven to be passed on gentically. Imune response,genetic abnormalities,etc are transfered. More hatchery fish surrvive right now that wild fish so they are more likely to breed with wild females. Also current research in Ore ( salmon not steelhead) shows that the wild males will move out of breeding areas when hatchery fish are present.

Arklier,

The studies that came up with those conclusions are listed and discussed in both this thread and the "Retaining Hatchery Steelhead" thread. They've also been discussed before on this BB, so a search of the site would probably come up with them and more.

The fact that it doesn't make sense to you doesn't make it not so. All the science points to the fact that it does indeed make sense, repeatedly.

Salmon and steelhead are not bass, walleye, or carp. They have life histories that are incredibly complex, and depend on many more factors than do warmwater fish life histories...more than we know, yet, I'm sure.

The "95% instinct, 5% experience" discussion doesn't mean anything to this discussion...the genetics that fish have, genetics that have developed hand in hand with the particular environment that the run of fish developed in, are not instinct, nor are they experience. Instinct rises out of the particular genetics, and are further modified by the experiences of the fish.

Scientific studies have borne these conclusions out repeatedly.

You wondered if wild and hatchery salmon interbreed successfully. I don't know of any studies that have specifically studied that yet. Until recently none of the hatchery fish have been marked, so it was harder to tell what was what, or even how many wild fish were among the hordes of hatchery fish returning.

These studies have been done on steelhead, though, and all have concluded that they do spawn together, but that they do not produce any (statistically) returning adults.

Also, it has been shown that one generation in hatchery ponds does indeed separate the wild fish from the hatchery fish...and more generations makes it even worse. That's why the broodstock programs which don't use fish more than a generation away from the wild fish are better, but still will never be as good as the wild fish.

When I have a bit more time than I do at the moment I'll post some of the most recent studies here, unless they get posted before I get a chance to.

Fish on...

Todd.

Todd

Stay with us a little longer!
You say Going back to the Cowlitz one more time! WDFW introduced winter run steelhead stocks that came from outside the basin, starting around 1936. They continued using these "outside stocks" (mostly Chambers) for over 31 more years. The smolt that were planted averaged 3.5/lb (meaning that they most likely had a very good return survival rate back to the Cowlitz). From 1957 to 1967, they planted an average of about 50,000 smolts each year until 1967. From 1967 on, they used only Cowlitz fish for hatchery production. They have used the interbreed prodigy of these fish in mass numbers in the Cowlitz from 1936 to 2000 to supply 100% of the hatcheries production.

During the years from 1972 thru 1979 they took no eggs from the wild native stock during March thru April (that 8 full years) that no eggs from wild native shock were used for all the production of Cowlitz winter steelhead. You have to remember that they were producing enough smolts to achieve a return of 22,000 adult steelhead back to the Cowlitz. Millions of smolt were produced during that time period. Tacoma operated there project in such a way that almost no natural production occurred in the lower Cowlitz below there dams. Harvest was and has been intense on any fish that ever was able to make a redd. In 1984, it was estimated that only 2% of the native winter run steelhead still spawned naturally in the Cowlitz. That was over 20 years ago!

No biologist that isn't on drugs would suggest that these "native" stocks of late winter run steelhead could have survived over this time period with the intense harvest, and hatchery interaction that has occurred on the Cowlitz for the pass 30 years.

If they could have, then no wild fish anywhere is in any danger of extinction! But now WDFW expects us to believe that a "special breed" of supernatural winter run steelhead now exists in enough numbers to be used for a recovery program because of there late return timing, and becuase they represent the true native winter steelhead.

Supposable WDFW did a genetic test that identified a "special" unique fish that only exists in the Cowlitz River! Isn't it strange that neither Tacoma nor WDFW would come up with any "original" DNA to verify that they "match" this supper stock of Cowlitz fish?

So much for that ONE GENNERATION of fish raised in a pond theory!


Cowlitzfisherman

CFM,

I guess this would be my speculation...if there are any wild steelhead left in the Cowlitz, they would be March, or later, fish, what with the zillions of hatchery fish that mainly have been running from Thanksgiving through January.

My guess is that there probably aren't any, or aren't very many, wild fish left. If there is going to be any natural production, though, it would make sense to try it with the later arriving fish so as to avoid overlapping "recovery fish" with "harvest fish", i.e., the "Boeing" run of fish that run during Christmas vacation.

Here are the two scenarios...

1. There are fish put there from the hatcheries for harvest, and that's it.

or

2. There are fish put there for harvest in the early season, and others which are allowed to seed the upper river for natural production in the later season.

I haven't yet read the stuff you were kind enough to send my way regarding the Cowlitz FERC relicensing agreement, but I'm guessing that this is the bone of contention.

Under either scenario above, there is the same amount of fish produced. Under #1 there are more fish produced at the hatcheries for harvest. Let's call that "X" amount of fish.

Under #2, the hatcheries produce, say, .75X amount of fish, and the other .25 X are to be created "naturally" in the upper river.

All things being equal, #1 produces more fish for harvest, while #2 produces the same amount of fish, but 25% less for harvest. This assumes that those .25X actually are produced in the natural river. This also would save Tacoma Power the money it would cost to produce the adcditional 25% of the fish.

Is this what you were talking about last week?

Fish on...

Todd.