Dear smalma et al,

Sorry, no connections to the group you speak of. I agree with locust, however, that it has been way too long that some of the green groups have been directing alot of this effort, and it's time to really examine their agendas as well. Come on, those of us that fish for fun really should be as objective as possible about these types of issues, and not be led blindly by agendas on either side.

That said, I want to adress the issue of inadvertant hatchery selection that smalma brought up. True, hatchery survivals are typically higher than that of a redd, but many times redd survival is another set of random events that has nothing to do with fitness. More importantly, we seem to forget in this argument that a majority of the life of a hatchery fish, however pampered at the beginning of its life, will be spent in the "real ocean" competing for resources. If an animal is capable of surviving, finding prey, avoiding predators, returning to its natal environment, avoiding more predators (especially those mesh net types, don't get me started on that one!) and succesfully reproducing, I'd suggest that selective forces have played an important role far beyond the availability of pelleted food for 25% or less of its life. Don't get me wrong, I believe in wild fish, too. But, given the choice between attempting to allow a river system to try and recover naturally after the population has crashed to a point that genetic drift has compounded the equation, or trying to aid (carefully) in the recover of that population, I'd go with the latter.

I must say, I'm very impressed with the level of scientific comprehension on this site!

BTW to Sucker Snagger,

The reason that I didn't repost to this board this weekend was because I was enjoying the Clifton channel (Cathlamet) and Moclips for a variety of edible delights. You are right, I initially sought this site out in order to try and figure out if anyone else was out catching fish this year while I'm getting skunked. And I was pulled in not from a political sensitivity, but because I happen to believe differently from some of the other posts.

Keep in mind that your forces of darkness might be someone elses points of light, and vice versa.

H2H, what are you talking about?

I will have to read this tonight.

I wil say that I have more time on said rivers than I want to admit right now.I have not caught a wild steely out of the dose or the duc in two years.Trust me I have tried.I did get a hatchery steely in sept on the duc.

Onother trend I see has to do with the skoke.the last two summer I have been catching hatchery kelts full of wild smolt.I haqve pics of on and stomack contents on my old idiot box somewhere.

I was at a freinds house today and found this on another site:

http://gamefishin.com/gfboard/forum_posts.asp?TID=3226&PN=1 (I had to E-Mail my freind to get the link)

"Fishyologist and Locust. They are right-wing paid prostitutes. They are from the Darkside. They have gazillions of dollars to control public disclosure."


Yeah, I guest you can say there from the DARK SIDE of the WORLD!

Fishyologist -
While I agree the ocean tends to be an equalizer when it comes to survival the fact remains for species like steelhead and coho who spend considerable time in freshwater their freshwater survival "skills" are hugely important.

For wild coho and steelhead it is typcially for only 1 to 5 % of the eggs to survive the freshwater enivrnoment. Once a steelhead reaches the parr stage over winter survival (fall to spring) to the smolt stage is typcially in the 30 to 50% range. I think you would agree that is a lot of selective pressure for particular set of survival skills. Because the freshwater and marine waters survival skills are so different - one example for much of the freshwater stage a steelhead to be has to defend feeding areas and finding cover in a relatively small area but once it moves to the ocean to be successful it must be more or less constantly on the move searching for food -the overall survival success of a particualr fish is dependent onits adpatability to both the freshwater and marine water envirnoments.

There a number of studies showing how unproductive first generation hatchery steelhead and coho are in the wild.

The fact that a fish can adapt in a new envirnoment, especially in lack of competition from other anadromous fish does not in itself mean that when they are mixed with local adapted wild populations they will be as "fit" as those wild fish. This would be doublely so if there is a constant infusion of fish adapted to the hatchery envirnoment.

Tight lines
S malma

Amen, S malma, Amen!

FNP
Send me an e-mail to my school account so I can forward you some steelhead picts.

Is Locust proposing that hatchery vs. native salmon and steelhead have no demonstrable genetic differences? That is a really tough one to swallow.

Let's not dilute "native" with "wild" here. Hatchery fish that lucked out and sent genes to progeny, or worse yet, crossed with native fish and produced crossbreeds, are not "native".

I smell a fart. While it may be mine, I think Suckersnagger might be onto something here with the insect.

This group appears to be good at confusing issues! First of all, I thought that we were talking about whether or not to utilize hatcheries to aid in restoration of wild populations once habitat and run size were impacted. Suddenly, the color of my heart is in question because I disagree with "wild in right".

Smalma, I've really got to question your survival numbers! Typical wild coho returns to coastal streams of late have been estimated to be 0.25% That's one quarter of 1%! So your numbers suggest that if we lose 99% as egg to first winter, and another 70% of the remainder to leaving the estuary, then ocean survival must be 100%. Doesn't add up to me. The ocean environment has been much more selective than you suggest, I'd be glad to send you refs.

Please cite your studies that demonstrate the first generation poor performance. I can likely name the authors before you post. The point is, IMO, there is science being published on both sides of this issue that is not unbiased. The wild fish guys are setting out to "prove" that hatcheries are bad, and the hatchery proponents are setting out to show that hatchery fish are not bad. There is little objective science in this arena that begins with a null hypothesis, designs experiments to give neither group an advantage, and objec tively measures the results. If you believe there are, I'd love to read them.

Whoever posted here that Lamark wasn't right after all; this "wild fish vs. hatchery fish" topic seems to be the opportunity for Lamarkian evolutionists to make thir come-back from the 1600's.

As for being attacked for thinking differently, I wish I had godzillions of $$. I'd be leaving these issues to you guys, sitting on a boat in a tropical sea, casting live sardinas to boiling yellowfins and having my crew of Amazonian beauties feed me guava. But I digress...........

Brian, You may disagree with what Locust, etc. are saying...but why the personal attacks? Saying the "I was at a freinds house today and found this on another site" is not right. Would you provide the source, and give some evidence for that comment? (We all know that just because it was on the Internet does not mean it has to be true...or even close to being true.

I kinda like having a diversity of opinions, and from appearences the two "new guys" are talking pleasantly and with apparent knowledge of the subject. Some might disagree with their conclusions, but let's not go bashing folks as individuals because you don't like the science they propose which happens to disagree with your philosophy on hatcheries.

"Why can't we all just get along"

Mike

Smalma,

You, of course, can respond to fishyologist's requests for references to the literature anyway you please.

As far as I'm concerned, you are a tremendous asset to this board, being generous in taking the time from your day job to share your opinion and professional insights on all sorts of Steelhead issues. You come across to me as completely professional, vastly experienced, and all about fish. You and your statements have great credibility with me.

This isn't an academic board and I don't see any need whatsoever for you take on the work load of backing up your posts with references to the academic literature.

That's just my opinion

I'm just real happy that you participate.
SS

What SuckerSnagger said!



Mike

Basic genitics would say its true. Just because you clip a fin off a fish does not change the genitics.

Genetics would dictate any differences between hatchery and wild fish would depend on the parents of said fish. If we're talking about a hatchery stock descended from fish not native to the stream in question (as is the case with many hatchery stocks) then there is a world of differnce genetically speaking. To assert otherwise is just completely ridiculous.

Furthermore, if what S. malma says is true that the first generation hatchery fish spawned from wild native fish perform very poorly relative to their wild cousins, then there appears to be a diffence in terms of fitness and therefore genetics (unless you want to invoke some sort of magically thinking here). This probably has something to do with a lack of selection for most of their freshwater life.

The question that I have is what is the difference between wild and hatchery fish for species like chum and pink salmon where there is no signifcant rearing period in the hatchery. Do they display reduced fitness like stealhead, coho and chinook reared in hatcheries? They spend almost no time in the hatchery after hatching.

My guess would be that this hatchery vs wild genetics thing is a big deal for fish that rear a long time in the hatchery (ie coho, chinook, and steelhead), but not such a big deal for fish that are just hatched and then released into the wild (ie chum, pinks, and sockeye). Anybody know about this?


If this is true, then the proposed policy of equating wild and hatchery fish (thus putting them on the spawning bed together) will probably not hurt wild pinks, chum or sockeye, but may well be devastating for wild chinook, coho, and steelhead.

Just my $0.02

Fishyologist -
I suspect that you may have mis-read my last post regarding survivals - what I said was

"For wild coho and steelhead it is typcially for only 1 to 5 % of the eggs to survive the freshwater enivrnoment."

Thought that was pretty clear that was the total for the entire period in freshwater. I did go to illustrate an example of the kinds of mortality that occurs even after the fish emerges from the egg. Even if it was poorly written the intent was to illustrate that the freshwater envirnoment is a hostile place exterting significant selective pressures on those populations. And that those pressures inlcude different forces than those operating in the hatchery envirnoment.

A coho survival of 0.25% implies that 800 smolts (2/0.0025) would be needed to produce just 2 returning adults. A value of 800 smolts/female for coho is much higher (nearly an order of magnitude) than I have typcially seen with coho production. Unless the freshwater envirnoment of those population is exceptionally productive that kind survival would indicate that those populations must in serious trouble. For comparison the coho survival in Northern Puget Sound is typcially 10 to 50 times higher than the 0.25% you cite as being observed on the coast.

Since you likely are familar with the literature I see no reason to provide cites. Howeve I will mention that some of the work on the poor preformance of hatchery steelhead spawning in the wild has come from the research being done on the Kalama River by WDFW staff. If you are suggesting that WDFW (operator of one of the largest hachery systems in the world) is anti-hatchery you will likely have a creditability problem on the site.

tight lines
S malma

For Duroboat15, et al:

Whenever hatchery practices utilize steelhead that are not native to the planted river system (ie. non-Broodstock systems, as are most common), they are introducing fish that are genetically different from the natives of that river system. This has been shown by protein electrophoretic and more modern nucleic acid-based data comparing native fish populations with hatchery stocks obtained elsewhere. Gots nothing to do with the fins man. It's in the double helix.

In fact, there are demonstrable genetic differences between, say, native steelhead in the Sky system vs. native steelhead in the Stilly system (much less a Chambers Cr clone vs. a Hoh native). This is so beautifully put together from an evolutionary standpoint, that an upper Sky native fish will have, on average, a different genetic makeup than a lower Snohomish spawner. There are genetically distinct subpopulations even within the same river system. These are preserved when lower system fish reproducibly spawn down there, and the upper river smolts return back up there to spawn with some fidelity. If you look at certain proteins the cells produce, there are reproducible allelic differences in how they are expressed, reflecting differences in gene expression and thereby indicating they are genetically different. These are interpreted in the context of a population of fish, and broad patterns of gene expression (tough to tell much about a population from just one fish). We see the difference phenotypically in how the fish are put together from different systems.

Please tell me how a Cowlitz steelhead has much in common with a good ol down home OP native. Seriously.

Much has been discussed aptly on this site about the problems with introducing fish populations with different genomes into native populations. In my opinion, one of the worst effects is crossbreeding of hatchery fish with native fish, resulting in the introduction of hatchery clone (non Broodstock, mind you) genetic material into the native gene pools. This is called introgression, and results in dilution of native genetic makeup. One could view this as another mechanism of genetic drift (which is good from a natural selective standpoint), but I'd disagree in that it is completely artificial and accelerated, and results in loss of native genomes and hence everything that makes the nates special. The concept of introgression was a theoretic one, and if I remember correctly, has been shown to have occured in certain salmonid populations in low gradient river systems like the lower Snohomish, with statistical significance. Once those unique populations are lost, they can never be recovered (it is an extinction). I reviewed the literature on this about 7 years ago for a talk, but I don't have the references handy. I might be able to find them with a lot of work somehow.

I don't want to repeat much of what Smalma and others have explained here. A lot of people are more qualified to explain these things than I am. I just think it's really important to understand that native fish runs are really special, and fragile, and worth fighting for. To say that non-Broodstock hatchery fish are the same as individuals in a native population is way off base.

Fishbadger:

Interesting info...thanks for sharing and making it understandable for us non-scientist types.

Q: Based on your comments (regarding the genetics of non-native to that particular system broodstock) then is there any scientific reasoning why the state hatcheries broodstock from a different source for other rivers? (IE: Skamania broodstock for Skagit hatchery fish?)

Based on my understanding of your comments, we would be much better off spawning native fish from that particular river system for the hatchery fish on that system. Then, if any did return to spawn naturally, there is much less chance of genetic degradation since that returning hatchery fish was spawned from another of the same system.

Does that make sense? If so, the why don't the hatcheries take their broodstock right from the river they are planting?

Mike

The Salmon and Steelhead


Hatchery Fish


Controversy, Part VII


Ernest L. Brannon, University of Idaho--March 4, 2005


Hatchery Genetic Risks and Benefits


Hatcheries fish are often alleged to have lower genetic diversity and fitness compared to fish in the wild. That is largely folklore. Genetic diversity in salmon and steelhead populations is extensive, and within-population diversity usually exceeds the diversity that exists between populations. Diversity is usually measured in what geneticists refer to as alleles in the molecular structure of DNA. Alleles are variations in the chemical signature of a specific molecular entity along the chain of entities (alleles) of the DNA. Diversity is usually a measure of quantitative differences in the frequency of those entities rather than fixed differences in the alleles themselves. For example, if there are two variations of an allele, which can be called a and b, the frequency in one population might be 80 a and 20 b, while in another population it may be 13 a and 87 b. The geneticists would conclude that the populations are different, not because they have fixed allele differences, but because the frequencies are different. Moreover, these alleles are considered neutral, which means they have no measurable effect on the organism and are not subject to natural selection. Therefore, frequency differences have no relationship to survival and reproductive fitness, suggesting that caution must be exercised in how these metrics are interpreted in assessing risk associated with artificial propagation. Variability in allele frequencies occurs regularly within natural populations, even between brood years, and should not be used as surrogates of real survival traits.

The ability to survive involves many different genes. Theory says that low levels of gene flow (1 to 10 individuals/generation) between populations will prevent differentiation. Gene exchange between hatchery and wild fish in a river segment is much higher than that level, and consequently the level of differentiation between wild and hatchery fish originating from the same gene pool will be very limited. If attempts are made to minimize genetic alterations in the hatchery segment of the population, the major influence separating the hatchery and wild components will be temporary behavioral characteristics acquired in the hatchery, and these rapidly disappear by the next generation in the wild, if not shortly after experiencing the natural environment.

Risks attributed to artificial propagation are legitimate concerns, but they are also largely theoretical, with limited evidence of any risk from artificial propagation in actual supplemented populations. Spawn timing is a genetic trait that has the most significant influence in salmonid fitness, and is the only alteration that has been associated with hatchery propagation in field studies on performance of hatchery and wild fish. However, alterations in spawn timing are easily avoided with an artificial spawning protocol that follows the native regime.

Phenotypic flexibility is also a critical fitness trait of salmonids, and is probably most evident in their response to temperature. Because fish are cold-blooded, incubation rates of salmonid embryos are highly variable depending on the temperature regime, as shown in work conducted by Tang et al. in 1987, Spawn timing in the wild is synchronized genetically with the incubation temperature of the natal stream to correctly position fry emergence in the spring. Altered emergence timing in hatcheries can be avoided simply by using the natal stream source as the water supply.

Genetic risks are associated with outbreeding (mixing of different populations), inbreeding (loss of diversity), and domestication (unintentional effects of artificial propagation). However, outbreeding depression has been primarily a problem created by the distribution and mixing of stocks in fisheries management. Long-term effects of outbreeding in natural populations has not been demonstrated. While the postulated negative effects are largely theoretical, possible beneficial effects may also occur in some cases by enhancing diversity.

Inbreeding is related to the effective population size, and much of the concern can be resolved by increasing the number of breeders and representing the diversity of the native population. Inbreeding can also be a problem in small, isolated natural populations.

Domestication represents the most likely genetic influence in hatchery fish, but selective mortality in the hatchery is relatively low, reducing its potential. There has been little research to determine whether selection in the hatchery results in higher egg to adult mortality than what occurs among wild fish. Much of the domestication evidence comes from aquaculture of captive populations that has little relevance to fish in the wild.

Artificial propagation has benefits beyond greater fishing opportunities. In contrast to the risks, benefits have not been given much attention in wild/hatchery fish evaluations. Artificial propagation is a tool to maintain population structure in the presence of potential negative environmental stochastic influences and the fishery. Hatchery fish represent the adaptive legacy of their originating population, and increasing population size through artificial propagation to avoid inbreeding, as well as maintaining genetic diversity, are benefits. With low mortality in hatcheries, rare alleles can be preserved during their freshwater rearing phase, and if they are beneficial, they have a chance to express that advantage in subsequent generations of the population. Hatcheries serve as repositories of genetic material, and the carcasses of hatchery fish are a source of nutrient recruitment in freshwater streams.

Contrary to the hatchery critics, artificial propagation should be viewed as a powerful tool in the conservation of wild fish that can be relatively free of long-term genetic risks, when working with local broodstock. Using integrated hatchery/wild fish, population structure of the native fish can be maintained in the presence of reduced habitat, marine related population crashes, and selective fisheries.

(References can be found in Fisheries 29(9):12-31).


Dr. Ernest L. Brannon is a professor at the Center for Salmonid and Freshwater Species at Risk, University of Idaho, Moscow. He is also Chairmen of the Salmon Committee for the Salmonid Foundation

Isochrome - I suspect it is because at some point in the distant past, the Game Department decided - as have many wildlife agencies - that there was a "need" for a species to occupy a niche that could be accessed by sport fishers. One only has to look at what we've done to our native fishes over the years by bringing brown trout from Europe, brook trout from the east coast, carp, shad, stripers, smallmouth bass, crappie, bluegill, walleye, northern pike, grass carp and others to meet someones demand for fish from there home state or country. Then we toss in our hybrids - tiger muskie, splake, tiger trout, wipers because they can reduce rough fish populations or are fun to catch/pretty to look at.

On a local level, someone saw a "need" for an early run steelhead so folks could be out on the river in November, December, and January before the "wild" fish started showing up. Chambers Creek had an early run and now that stock is "locally adapted" to almost every steelhead river on the coast and in to Puget Sound. The same holds true for the summer run steelhead using the Skamania stock to "supplement" an existing run or build a new run.

Fortunately, although probably too late to effect any major shift/change in our lifetimes, the Dept has been re-evaluating its process and is now trying to use "locally adapted" stocks rather than moving fish between drainages. One example, for the early run component, is the cessation of Bogachiel-Chambers for the rivers on the Straits. It looks like they'll be using Elwha stock for future plantings from the Hoko east to the Dungeness. Dungeness fish might also be considered at some point.

As for "wild" stock, I fully agree that the Dept should be using local "wild" fish as the base stock and not import fish from other drainages.