First, I am not trying to stir the pot or start up a yet another online feud about hatchery vs wild. I am the first to admit that I am no scientist and most here know way more about the subject then myself, but if you don't ask, how do you learn, right?

I have been following a discussion on a couple of other boards about the upcoming WDFW Commisioners meeting where the subject of hatchery reform will be discussed, and like usual, there's at least two sides. My question is this:

If ALL the money we currently spend on hatcheries were diverted to habitat restoration/repair/conservation, realistically what would the result be? Which watersheds would be fixed? Which runs restored? Which would be wiped out? And how would that affect fishing and retention of fish for sportfishers?

The most important distinction to make is that between the habitat needs of native and wild fish. Nates need cold clean water with good pool forming habitat, and good un-embedded substrate to spawn in. If all money was diverted to hatcheries the fish that would benefit would be native fish. All rivers with little to no nates would become essentially dead obviously, although with water quality and habitat improvements the viability of egg/fry supplementation programs becomes a possibility helping promote once again self sufficient populations (once water quality and habitat needs have been met).

Really the answer to helping salmon is just a combination of monitoring and equal allocation and understanding of hatchery supp. in conjunction with ecological restoration at the habitat level.

The problem with habitat restoration is that alot of the habitat has been logged and houses built on it, how do you fix that. The habitat isn't just the river itself but the watershed.

What Jerry said! Unfortunately the cost of "fixing" habitat probably would take the hatchery budget for the next 500 years.

The first question is what do you want? If all the habitat were in perfect shape, people wouldn't be here.

Wild stocks, and the ecosystems they support, can not endure high harvest rates. Most should be down around 10-20%. So, with perfect habitat we would have lots of fish but fewer to kill.

If you want functioning ecosystems, certainly some C&R fishing, and a bit of harvest, wild fish are the way to go. If lots of dead fish in the boat are the goal, hatcheries are the only way to get there.

The discussion Dolphin is referring to has had so many "untruths" posted by the self proclaimed "Cowlitz" expert who is calling for action at the WDFW Commission meeting to lobby for his Cowlitz agenda.

The Cowlitz is not the focus of the meeting, but he wants it to be.

The Commission is attempting to create an updated policy to implement the HSRG recommendations. In other words, the Commission is looking at how hatchery impacts can be reduced. Said "Cowlitz" expert apparently believes that the Commission will undertake the elimination of all hatchery fish on that river. Diverting hatchery funding to habitat is just some of the background noise, because that's not what is being undertaken by this policy.

It's unfortunate that neither Francis (who is having way too much fun IMO) nor Todd participated in the Ifish thread. It's even more unfortunate that Salmo g and Smalma didn't. I hate to see the misinformation campaign going on.

That's because it was on ifish. Fish recovery issue are not the main theme over there like it is here.

As you said, when they do pop up, the amount of crap and mis-information posted over there is mind boggling, not to mention most people won't listen to Todd as he repeatedly beats a thought in to their brains.

If I want to read and discuss real fish issues, I stick with this board.

Maybe we/us could get all of our local salmon/steelhead fishing-centric web sites, boards, and blogs to all be linked together, so all differing and valuable discussion points relative to helping these fish could be heard and acted upon by one large interest group.
- vs -
What we have today, Hatchery Only, Wild Fish Only, Habitat Only, Preservation Only, C&R Only, Fly Fishers Only, and the Bonk'em Only groups all separated and pointing middle fingers at each other...

In the name of our fish, amen...

PS Make that link a huge Button at the top of every local fishing website proclaiming - "Go Here to listen, learn, and speak up?" And while I'm at it, have that Button link to all the tribes and the commercial folks as well.

Cheers
Redd

Aunty -
Even I reach a limit after which I find it pointless to continue to beat the same old dead horse.

Carcassman -
I'm not sure that I agree that wild populations in productive habitats can not support higher harvest rates. The best example I can think of would be the Skykomish Chinook. Currently the escapements are around 6,000 fish will allowable ESA impacts of 25% -2,000 fish. Estimates were that if the habitat were restored to what the feds called properly functioning conditions it was estimated that if the fishing was limited to 50% (below MSY levels) we might see something like escapements of 30,000 fish and harvests of 30,000.

You are right of course if harvest rates were limited to the suggested range of 10 to 20% we would see even more fish on the spawning grounds but a lot less for the fishers - maybe something like 70,000 spanwers and 10,000 to harvest. As always it comes down to trade offs; regardless of how the pie would be divided if there were properly funcitioning habitats there would be substantial increases in both wild escapements and fish to harvest.

Dolphin -
Something to keep in mind a substantial portion of the hatchery production is mandated as mitigation for previous habitat abuses.

If we want to see more wild fish we have to have better habitat. To get there more than spending money is needed. For starters we as a society need to protect what habitat we still have and then look to prioritize restoration efforts. However to be successful in either effort we need to change society's values and priorities.

The sad true is that we have decided that it is more important to use the fish's water and habitat to grow potatoes in a desert, to have cheap and readily available power and water, make Lewiston Idaho a sea port, etc than to have healthy populations of anadromous salmonids that could support valuable fisheries.

My best guess is that converting hatchery $$ to habitat restoration is likely to meet with little improvement in the status of our fishery resource without significant changes in society's values. It would however result in significant reductions in fishing opportunities.

I coming to the realization that about the best those of us that care about wild fish can do is to do our best to preserve as many options as possible for as long as possible on the off chance that future generations develop different priorities than those of today.

Tight lines
Curt

My point is that a hatchery can produce a whole lot more dead fish in the boat per unit of water or square miles of protected habitat than you can get with natural production.

I also challenge the ideas that the Feds properly functioning habitat measaures are even close. I am not intimately familiar with all of Washington's salmon streams but is there one where have an accurate ,measure of what it can produce? When we started counting escapment the runs had already been heavily fished for decades. When we finally looked at habitat closely it was second or third growth.

Out in Karluk Lake up on Kodiak Island the best science (a limnologist named Koenings) said that according to his models the system's capacity for spawning sockeye was about 2 million. Sediment cores tell us 2 million was the "floor" for about 1,000 years and it went up to 4 million. If our best science in as close to a pristine system as you can find comes in 50% below reality, just where are the current models developed down here?

Mismanagement hurts runs far more than Logging ever could/did/do. Humors me that folks muse a Salmon's worst nightmare as being some mud in the water.

My most favorite and fertile systems to beat up upon,had/have been Logged to their streamsides and heavily in their watershed drainages,while boasting exceptional numbers of Native Fish during/after the fact. That as per Forest Practices of yesteryear,which have been correctly remedied since. Today's Logging impact is less than dick,as per Salmonid nightmares.

The fix is beyond obvious,as well as inexpensive.

Hey thanks for all the replys! I sometimes feel out of place here, but can always count on answers to any questions I pose.

Jerry and Eddie
My initial gut reaction, without any facts to substantiate it is that ALL the money spent on hatcheries would just be a drop in the bucket compared to the actual cost of real habitat restoration.

Mpizzle
I really like the common sense idea of a combination of strategies, understanding that hatcheries play an important and key role

Redd

I got to agree! Sometimes it is so hard for the thinking sportsman to figure out all the angles.

Smalma

I really appreciate your balanced approach and clear scientific thinking. It's people like you that make me really consider how much my own selfish interests affect my thinking and cause me to recognize the need for scientific reasoning to temper my obvious desire to wish I was born a 100 years earlier and could catch and eat all the fish you wanted. I have tried to read some of the studies that have been linked here in the past, and although I didn't understand everything, I just can't get my head around the idea of hatcheries doing actual genetic harm. I made it through slightly better than average college biology , 30 years ago I thought I might be a fishery biologist, but I went into education instead and now tutor HS biology. I just don't see how being raise in a hatchery environment could affect meiosis DNA changes. I can understand how hatcheries could affect Natural Selection and result in an "unfair advantage" to hatchery stock. But a couple of generations in the wild and wont it revert back to "normal"
It seems that hatchery reform is more the answer here than throwin out the baby with the bath water.



Aunty and Parker

I really appreciate your passion but truth is your positions scare me.
Like I said I am no scientist nor am I a politician, but I do think and contact my local representatives every year on any number of issues. I am a sportfisher that eats what I catch and can't afford to fly to Alaska or even drive all over the State and as such my interests are in being able to fish in my back yard. and keep some of my catch for the table. I am concerned that coupled with the States need and desire to cut spending, we give them a convenient excuse to cut funding and then close fishing in the name of conservation. Case in point, we are just now com ming off a an almost complete conservation closure of Marine Areas 9 and 10 for summer and fall kings. The only reason is because we can catch Hatchery kings. After 10 of my best years what do we have to show for it?

I have sent the Commission my request that they move cautiously with hatchery reform and only close hatcheries when there is clear scientific proof of resource benefit and weigh it carefully withthe need of all consumers.

Thanks again all for your thoughtful replys.

Your reply to all -
+1

Just keep asking those questions here and in other forums. Keep them relevant and respectful of all positions, even ones you may not understand or strongly disagree with, and you will get some well stated and thought out responses from these folks.

And "most" will have something that backs their response with a broad mix of field experience, reality, truth, science, and a lot of passion...

Then we "all" get to read and possibly think a bit, scratch our heads and begin to communicate.

Redd

what's interesting is that we know that current management is not working. one of the big problems is our hatchery programs (one of the H's), but we cannot forget what a huge impact hatcheries have had on harvest issues.

hatchery fish have and continue to have huge negative impacts on harvest levels in our rivers. whether it's changing run timing (winter steelhead) or just too high of bycatch in terminal and non-terminal fisheries (all others)... our wild fish have taken the brunt of our addiction to hatcheries. we now have habitat that cannot be used by the wild fish because the run timing has pushed wild returners into a time frame where certain habitats are unsuitable for late-spawning steelhead. how do we restore that while still having intensive harvest fisheries (sport and tribal) on early returning hatchery steelhead (which should be removed so they don't spawn with wild fish)? should we change rules to disallow certain gear types (high mortality such as bait) during summer months to avoid catching juvenile steelhead? it's no wonder we have such a hard time agreeing on saving wild fish, even though we really do know exactly what needs to be done... it's kind of like being overweight, you want to be thinner and healthier and know to eat healthier and exercise, but it's just too much of a sacrifice to really do what's necessary. so we have conflicting user groups, even within the sportfishing community, and an agency desperate to sell fishing licenses... and we think decisions are going to be made in the best interest of wild fish?

for steelhead - here's the most recent smolt plants for the state
WDFW 2007 Steelhead Stocking

if you look at this you will see zero major river systems without winter steelhead plants... and from the quinault to the dungeness... i can only pick out two tributaries and three creeks that are open for winter-runs that do not get planted (not looking at regs, just going off memory). so when i hear about hatchery reform and wild fish management, my biggest question is
"WHICH SYSTEM ARE WE GONNA START WITH?"
because these plant numbers are only steelhead, and many of these systems also have salmon plants. are we just going to beat around the bushes (attempting to have better collection of returning hatchery spawners,etc) or is there actually going to be wild fish management... which means the removal of all hatchery plants from an entire system?

it's a tough question, because it's gonna have to be negotiated with the tribes if we can even come to any kind of agreement.

chris

If you want to maintain harvest, we'll have hatcheries.

If you want to fish in the ocean (AK, BC,WA) we'll have hatcheries.

If you want some sort of commercial fishing industry rather than simply subsistence/recreation, we'll have hatcheries.

If the human population keeps growing, we'll have hatcheries.

As long as property rights are a high societal priority, we'll have hatcheries.

While it is popular to knock the tribes for their fisheries, without the Boldt decison we'd be in a whole lot worse shape because that decision forced WA into managing for escapment, for getting fish into the terminal areas. Without Boldt, we'd have a summer-long ocean fishery with 3 fish limits, orr more, and maximum hatchery production. And more of the habitat would be toast.

Well said CM!

So sad but so true. One of the most disheartening things I have read here. With the way the economy is heading (short term) and the values of today's youth, I'm not very optomistic about the future of wild fish.

I have a problem, I really like eating fish, yes salmon and steelhead among others. I would really like to go with ALL WILD FISH, but then when in my lifetime or my son's would we be able to ever catch and eat fish caught by our own hand. I will not go to the store to buy a fish for many reasons. It seems to me that today many of our rivers have no wildstock left in them, that being the case manage them for hatchery fish period. What is happening on the Cowlitz for example makes no sense to me. Since the first day I fished that river, I have seen it go down, down, down until its a mere shadow of itself. It seems that the return of coho was to large so now they are going to outplant much of the Toutle and Cowlitz coho. This will be the LAST YEAR of off the hook coho fishing on the Cowlitz. I go back far enough to have seen 60 pound Chinook on that river, and springers in the 30's. I fished it when we had 10,000 winterrun steelhead coming back. Ah the memories. What ever happened to common sense.........rant over........Chuck G

It was a good rant don't you think????!!!!

Until someone / somehow is able to force all entities that have required mitigation to perform things on the Cow will contue down as in other places. Mit fish should produce the correct number of returning adults with the correct genetic safe guards. If the problem is brood capture wild spawning adults and use them for brood. If the problem is facility fix it. Personel.........kick them in the ass and if that doesn't work down the road. Just throwing numbers out the door DOES NOT mean Mit is fullfilled.............but thats how they do it. There needs to be consequences for non performance.

Hmmmmm......

I have tried to educate myself on some of these issues as well. I would like to thank people like Smalma and Salmo G. for spending some of their time writing about these issues.

I like fishing and I like bonking hatchery fish. I don't think removing hatcheries is going to have the desired effect. I have a hard time believing that in X number of years, with a lot of hard work, we'll have the magnificent runs of 200 years ago. Even if everyone quit fishing today.

I look at the Hoh as a place that really doesn't have any habitat issues. Most of the water is in a National Park. There are some hatchery plants, but not like the Cowlitz or even the Bogi. Are the hatchery fish really destroying the ecosystem? I have a hard time believing it. Also, with a nice healthy ecosystem in place it seems like the natives should be doing well. They continue to not reach escapement and escapement keeps going down, down, down.
Why?
I think the black box of the ocean is a huge problem that we can't do anything about. What about the "100 year floods" that we seem to be having every year now that scour the riverbeds? Probably not good for wild escapement. I think gill nets will continue to fish unattended until every last fish is dead. I also think our culture and economy place little value in preservation and the future. It sucks, but people want to consume and our economy is based on it. People love the Mc mansions, with the highly manicured lawn that goes right up to the levee, found along the river banks of every river I fish. Hell, on the Puyallup they think that a highly manicured golf course next to the river bank is a good idea. Are people going to give it up? I don't think so. I think hatcheries can be reformed, but definately not eliminated unless you want to see rivers without salmon (word play intended).

I really hate Genesis, but here it is in a nut shell:
Theres too many men
Too many people
Making too many problems
And not much love to go round
Cant you see
This is a land of confusion.

Brody