Last year was a prime example.... There were plenty of malnutritioned adults in the springer return..

Keith

It's all kinds of competition, but wild and hatchery fish of the same species occupy the same niche their entire lives (after hatchery release), eating the same foods, in the same places, at the same times...they are in direct competition from the day they are together in the river until the hatchery fish are either culled out by adult collection facilities or killed by a fisherman, for their entire lives.

There is all kinds of indirect competition, and direct competition, too, between all types of animals...but that's not what we're talking about here...we're talking about the direct, immediate, known, and measured competition between a hatchery fish and a wild fish of the same species.

I'm not kidding...read the stuff I searched up on Google...every single one of them will tell you the same thing...like I said, this is not some new or controversial subject, this is a very fundamental and accepted cost of hatchery programs.

Fish on...

Todd

hmmm...

Okay I'm back to the computer, I wish my weeds in the yard would starve.

I checked your search about this "competition"

http://www.issaquahfish.org/faq/index.html#q11
"Issue: Hatchery salmon compete with the wild salmon for food.
Response: The Issaquah Salmon Hatchery produces approximately 2 million chinook smolts and 500,000 coho yearlings each season. These smolts are released when their bodies are beginning to go through hormonal changes signaling their readiness to migrate to saltwater. The release during the smolting stage is timed so that the hatchery fish will migrate rapidly to the Ballard Locks, sometimes as fast as 41 miles in two days, to minimize competition with wild fish for food."

http://www.krisweb.com/biblio/sft_usbor_pwa_1994_sftplan/pwa2.htm
"While competition between hatchery and wild fish has not been conclusively proven, the California Department of Fish and Game recently reaffirmed their commitment to limiting production at the basin's two large hatcheries to levels needed for mitigation.

So why don't we see a rebound in native fish where hatchery production has been curtailed or eliminated?

I think that both can co-exist from sound hatchery management. Here's a an example, http://www.dfw.state.or.us/resources/fishing/docs/Siletz_Report.pdf

It's nice to see that the native summerun population has rebounded from the early to mid 90's. A few years ago they were getting good returns of both.

They are concerned about last season's poor run of fall Chinook that they are talking about lowering limits and having a bait ban in the fall.

I don't see the coho run rebounding even though the tribe is operating the old Rock Creek hatchery to help. Remember when KitzClubber killed 30,000 coho on the Alsea? I don't think that had much impact on the wild runs.

Jake where did I say steelhead don't even compete amongst themselves?

Where are the facts? You need to think before you post and stop taking things out of context. I've looked at what Todd posted - 5 pages and I haven't found any conclusive evidence. Wow smolts in Lake Washington are competing for food for 2 whole days. Give me a frigging break! Do you just post to harass people? Talk about stupid.

I don't recall anyone in this thread saying they can't co-exist...all I recall is you saying that hatchery and wild fish "don't compete", and that "hatchery fish being present reduces pressure on wild fish"...and me taking exception to both of those statements.

The reason that many stocks have not rebounded after fishing was stopped over them and hatchery plants have been stopped in the same watershed is that by the time the things killing them were removed (harvest and hatchery fish), it was far too late...they were almost gone already.

Currently, a lot of this is due to the fact that habitat destruction was so rampant that there isn't anywhere left for them to spawn or rear.

The clouds of hatchery fish obscured a few things...before they were being clipped, they obscured the fact that after a few short years of intense harvest over intermingled hatchery and wild stocks, the wild component of the run was almost gone, and due to high survival rates (common at the beginning of hatchery programs), habitat destruction went along unabated...

"Look at all the fish in the river! No need to change anything!'

...until they started clipping fish and found out that a disproportionately high percentage of the fish returning were hatchery fish...the wild fish that depend on lower harvest rates and good habitat to flourish were wiped out.

Without stopping habitat destruction, but stopping harvest and/or hatchery plants, all that was left was the ever-diminishing remnant of the wild stock...and then the ESA kicked in and "recovery" started...yeah, recovery.

On rivers like the Nisqually it appears that the stock was so bad off that it may not ever have sufficient numbers to recover at all...it's the same situation with the Lk. Washington steelhead numbers. It was sea lions that "overharvested" the run, but by the time steps were taken to stop it, it was too late...there just weren't enough fish left.

Minimizing the risks posed to wild stocks by hatchery fish is just one of the many things that will have to be done in order to recover anything...reducing harvest pressures on depressed stocks, especially in mixed-stock fisheries, is a no brainer, too...a no brainer, that is, if we actually want to get recovery.

The biggest limiting factor on most stocks around here is habitat...the rivers just can't support enough fish to "recover" them, at least not to anywhere near "harvestable" levels, which is how many, if not most define "recovery".

It used to be that during periods of poor marine conditions that fish like steelhead had various life history strategies to help them weather the storm...chief amongst them were abundance and genetic diversity, the two things that are most lost to our wild stocks.

Abundance is obvious...there just aren't many around anymore. When I say "genetic diverstity" I mean diversity over many fields...time, size, life history, etc. In a fully functional population there are fish returning over a long time period...a cataclysmic event, or a periodic downturn in productivity, that factors against a certain life history trait is made up for the numbers available in the other life history forms. Removing abundance of any one life history strategy will, eventually, remove abundance for them all...they are all interconnected and important parts of the population.

When abundance is low for a component, and then an event occurs that factors against the other components, there's nothing left to take up the slack, and extinction or local extirpation is right around the corner.

In virtually all cases hatchery fish are bad for the wild stocks...far from reducing pressure on the wild stocks, they are often the sole reason that there is any fishing pressure on the wild stock at all. Mixed stock fisheries are the bane of wild stocks. Genetic drift from hatchery fish to the wild stock reduces its already challenged fitness and productivity. Mining of eggs from wild stocks to create new and "improved" hatchery runs is just that...killing wild fish to make hatchery fish.

The challenge is not to pretend that hatchery fish are good for wild fish, or to even pretend that they are benign...the challenge is to acknowlege what the effects from hatchery fish are, and to strive to ameliorate those effects as best as possible, or we won't have many fish to fish for at all, since that's the function provided mainly by hatchery fish.

Fish on...

Todd

[quote=Steelheadman]

Jake where did I say steelhead don't even compete amongst themselves?

Where are the facts? You need to think before you post and stop taking things out of context. I've looked at what Todd posted - 5 pages and I haven't found any conclusive evidence. Wow smolts in Lake Washington are competing for food for 2 whole days.[quote]

To be fair, you've said it repeatedly, and clearly you still think it doesn't happen.

I'm reminded of the saying that "you can lead a horse to water..." you know the rest. Feel free to not be convinced...it's a free world...but realize that your "opinion" is in direct opposition to all the facts otherwise.

Carry on.

Fish on...

Todd

Jake, isn't that the idea behind Darwin's Experiment....

Survival of the fittest?

Maybe hatchery fish are stronger, able to feed themselves better

I think it works both ways.

I hope that's some sort of a weird joke, Jerry...

WTF? Thats a new one on me! Which scientist figured that comment out.

I would really like to read the evidence on that Marsha!

No not wierd just a joke I guess.

If hatchery fish are competing for food and habitat with wild fish and winning, which is more fit? Hatchery, or Wild?

Just a question now not a joke.

They're not "winning"...they're all losing, but not nearly so much as us fishermen are.

Jerry, juvenile hatchery fish of one species are very well known for feeding upon the wild juveniles of another...care to give it a guess as to which one?

Fish on...

Todd

I feel that this is FOC's ideology on the Cowlitz Late Winter Wild fish right now!

...except on the Nisqually there's no actual "recovery plan", and those are true native fish...on the Cowlitz there's a big plan in place, but it's using "wild" fish of presumably "as close to native stock" as we can get...essentially using hatchery fish of local origin, I believe...

Hard to compare the Nisqually with the Cowlitz...the Cowlitz receives millions of planted fish per year, thousands of fish caught, a jillion man hours spent chasing 'em...while the Nisqually presents some excellent fall snagging opportunities, with a few anglers who actually go out and catch some legally, and zero steelhead opportunity.

Fish on...

Todd

Glad I went fishing today and missed the Hatchery versus wild lecture at the University of PP.

By the way, here 3 that are no longer in the equation.

Well, there's three fish that aren't part of the problem!

Jake, Maybe I perceived you and Todd as being in Aunties anti - hatchery corner. You may be right that you and Todd fishing for hatchery fish has nothing to do with this topic. Just because hatchery fish may not be as good as wild fish doesn't make them worthless in my opinion. I still think the "competition" thing between hatchery and native is overated as I think there is enough food for both to co-exist. Yes there is competition between individual fish and different species. Have they ever studied competition between sexes? I just don't see the numbers and the cause and effect. There are other more significant issues like preditation, pollution, disease, climate, etc. 80% of the effects are attributed to 20% of the causes. Maybe there is "competition" but I would guess the effect would be small maybe just 1% or less. Just because it's posted on the internet or read in a magazine doesn't make it true.

Todd, If they shut down the hatchery fish runs where could you fish and what would be the impact on the wild fish? I've seen figures as high as 10% on hook mortality.

Maybe somebody will figure out why the runs are not doing too well this year. If they find out it's because of a food problem be it in the rivers or the salt then I'll eat my words. Yes it concerns me that the runs on the Columbia tribs are down this year to date. Hopefully they are late because of the cool water.

9686 Kings went over Bonnie today. Along w/ 409 jacks, which is almost twice as many jacks as had crossed all spring before today.

I don't think hatchery fish are worthless...I eat about 50 of 'em a year, so they definitely have some worth.

Translating that worth into "good" for wild fish, or "benign" to hatchery fish, would be a weird conclusion to come to, however...

I don't know how much the competition between wild and hatchery fish for food, rearing habitat, or spawning habitat effects the ability of wild fish to prosper...I think it would be hard to put an exact number on it, depending on which factor you are looking.

The "spawning habitat" part is easily documented...the more hatchery fish participating in the spawning group, the worse the fish do...period. That one's easily and clearly identified.

Rearing habitat is a little harder, but the hatchery fish of the same species at the same time tend to overwhelm the native fish not only in sheer numbers, but in individual success, too, because they are large than their wild cousins due to growing in the relatively safe hatchery environment.

In a perfect world, this would mean that the hatchery fish would be more successful than the wild fish, and would not only outcompete them for space and food, but would outcompete them when it comes to returning adults...the problem is that this is rarely, if ever the case.

Just like hatchery fish on the spawning grounds, they compete for and use up the limited spawning territories...the juveniles also compete for and use up the limited feeding opportunities...that being said, they all go out to sea, compete for food there, too...and when all is said and done and they return to their natal streams to spawn, relatively speaking the native fish far outcompete them on "replacement values".

What this means is that the hatchery fish steal space...they steal food...they steal spawning areas...and at the end of the day, the wild fish still outperform them based on percentage of juveniles that become productive parts of the spawning community.

This is relevant because if hatchery fish take up 1/2 of the spawning territories, for example, but only return 1/3 the adults, then we are being cheated out of 66% of the returning fish we'd have if the hatchery fish were not on the spawning grounds to begin with.

If all that was spawning were the low abundance, but high success rate wild fish, in the long run it would improve both spawning success and abundance overall.

Fish on...

Todd

Another way of looking at it is that each hatchery raised fish in the ocean is food for another preditor up the food chain. If that hatchery raised fish wasn't there and there wasn't another food source, then the wild fish gets eaten instead.