I have over the last 25yrs, and it started from the fish at the Cowlitz many years ago, Stripping ripe clipped hens and bucks off there eggs and milt, We started with a fish tank, then moved to the kids blue pool, and they hatched, it was awsome, we would put them in a friends pond and let them grow up abit and open the gate for freedom. over the next few years from time to time you would see some adults waiting on the outside of the gate to get back in. Now if we catch a ripe pair in the same day we just strip the eggs, squeez the milt in a bucket and dump the eggs in the 15ft of gravel from the spring where the pond is fed to the pond, in the late summer there are little guys hitting bugs on the surface like rain drops. they hatch, they grow, and they return. without us feeding them, just giving them a place to play. when I was young, My dad was high up in the forest service, And I would get to go with the local Bio for the State, help with wiers, help with egg boxes, which work. and do alot of redd counting. We floated down the rivers with fins , masks, snorkles in the summer counting steelhead smolt, and cut throat. And since I have given many hours to these fish. And have learned alot about them. They are an awsome creature. But they need our help, moreso then in just habitat, at first the Hood river broodstock project was a great success, now years later, the thinking has changed. Or really was it the people and there perspective has changed. you can read anything you want into any written document, Todd finds the negitive in what he asked Slab to read, And Slab finds the postiive aspects with-in the document. it is not science it is preception. If 2000 fish hit the gravel, 2000 return as a result from them, if the numbers where higher, we would not always be sitting on about the same escapement. if with 40 pairs, I could raise them and release them and let return, I would have about the same return as the 2000, and even with a decreased spawning success. it is still more then the 2000 mother nature supplied, and thus the numbers should rise. Mother natures flooding has caused more damage, and it doesn't care about fitness. She has become a distructive force of late, 50yr 100yr floods are becoming more of the norm them a rarity. raise them release them and help them through broodstocking, let them go with high fins, the Hatchery wild have them, why not broodstock where they can become escapement......fish on, Matt

I'm sure you could say something dumber next time, but it will probably require some effort.

You should probably go set yourself on fire for that display of idiocy.

You use that phrase a lot........and I like it.....no doubt it's been directed my way at some time or another. Sooooo, here's what I'm thinking. You should have a card made up with the directions for "How to set yourself on fire". Since there no doubt is a need for such action due to idiocy......no doubt there also is a need for directions. Eh, whatchathink?

Met'lheadMatt,

I've responded to posts of yours before, so I know that you hang out on this board at least some. I don't know if you do so consistently enough to have not missed the previous and extensive threads on this very topic of the effects of hatchery fish on wild fish. The science is clear in that there are effects, and they are invariably negative to the wild fish population, where the species is a stream rearing obligate. Writing as you have in starting this thread suggests that either you haven't read the plentiful material available on this topie, or that your reading comprehension suffers. I'll give you this, that there is the remote possibility that you have both read and fully understood the genetics studies and are qualified to conclude an opposing interpretation.

The following is a post I made on another board about this same subject a week ago. It uses hypotheses that are consistent with observations made here in the PNW, but I simplified it for convenience and to be understandable to the layman reader. Perhaps it will help your understanding.


"We don’t all go through this debate. Some of us seek the truth and go where it leads us. I don’t think there’s much to debate about hatchery and wild fish genetic fitness unless you’re seeking something other than the truth. But there is a lot to discuss.

The Hood River studies are among the most recent steelhead genetic studies. Some earlier work was done on the Kalama River. Google is your friend. There was some work in California also, but I’m not sure if I have a copy of that study. And a Cowlitz steelhead genetics study was finished a year or so ago. I know I can find that easily and send you a copy if you like.

You can look up who funded the Hood River studies, but the tone that you write with makes you appear biased. A biased person is less likely to be open to objective information. So would it be a waste of time discussing salmonid genetics with you?

As far as I know there are no studies showing that wild fish have higher or lower smolt to adult return rates (SAR) than broodstock hatchery fish (which is a generalized term in itself and needs more concise definition to be useful in discussion). Lack of research is a serious problem with many of our fish programs, both hatchery and wild. But making up conclusions about what is going on in the absence of real data is never a sign of intelligent thinking.

You asked, “If hatchery fish are so terribly unfit and the spawning of them with wild fish produces nearly zero new fish, how have our fish runs survived since the first hatcheries were started as early as the 1900's?” The short answer is that we have continued hatchery programs for over 100 years. If you’re actually serious about this and are open to seeking the truth and going wherever it leads you, there is more to it of course.

Are hatchery fish “unfit?” What is fitness? Maybe you’re familiar with the term “survival of the fittest?” It’s an hypothesis, never proven false, that in the natural environment, the fittest animals survive to reproduce their kind and perpetuate the species' survival over time. Animals that are weak or diseased typically are taken by predators and removed from the breeding population. Some healthy animals are removed from the breeding population by chance – they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, and zap! – eaten by a predator. But overall the animals that survive and reproduce are the fittest, and they pass those attributes of fitness on to the next generation.

So what about that hatchery fish? Well, hatchery fish begin with native wild broodstock, the kind that are of the highest fitness in the natural environment. We science dweebs, regardless of who we are bought and paid by, would say this fish has a reproductive fitness in the natural environment of 1.0, as in 100%, it doesn’t get any better than this. OK? Now we spawn these native wild fish artificially and rear their offspring in a hatchery environment, not the natural environment. (If you don’t believe in evolution and Darwin’s theory, you may as well stop reading right now and go live in ignorance.) Rearing the juvenile fish in a hatchery environment unavoidably selects for traits that are conducive to survival in the hatchery environment, not the natural environment. Why? Because the two environments are significantly different. In the natural stream environment a juvenile fish must continually make a choice, a compromise if you will, between foraging and hiding from predators. It must forage to survive and grow. And it must avoid predation in order to survive. It’s not easy to have it both ways. But only those who successfully do both will survive to reproduce.

Predators are kept out of the hatchery for the most part. The eggs are incubated in clean water, free of silt, so egg-to-fry survival is high (although this isn’t genetic selection). Food is provided by hatchery staff, so the fish don’t have to learn how to forage like their wild counterparts. The fish that survive hatchery life, which is most of them, have heritable traits. They will pass on those traits to the next generation if they survive to spawn. Those traits are genetic attributes. And those traits are the traits of easy living: food comes to them; they don’t have to go foraging to find it. And they never see a predator during their juvenile life.

And then the hatchery fish are released into the natural stream environment at the time they are genetically programmed to migrate to the ocean. Unfortunately they haven’t had good training or life lessons in predator avoidance, so on average, more of them are taken by predators along the way than of their wild brethren. (Always hanging around near the water surface where the hatchery food came from makes them easy targets for the terns in the lower Columbia River (LCR)). Some data show wild SAR as higher than hatchery fish SAR, which stands to reason. But science can be muddy, just like real life, and sometimes we get data showing hatchery SAR just as high as wild fish – especially coho, but then juvenile coho have always seemed to be the street fighters among the salmonid crowd.

About two years later our hatchery fish return to freshwater, and some will escape the fishery and stray and not return to a hatchery rack. This F1 generation of native broodstock hatchery fish will spawn and pass on its heritable traits to the next generation of fish. But what are those traits? Well the obvious and important ones are these: 1. Food just comes to you, and you don’t have to go forage for it; and 2. As a juvenile there are no predators you need to watch out for. As you might now understand, this isn’t gonna’ be a big help in the survival department. OK, so how much of “not a big help” is it?

From our example so far you can probably see that the hatchery effect on fish depends how long they live in a hatchery environment. Juvenile coho and steelhead and spring Chinook live one year in the hatchery, so they have one year of “soft easy living” and not having for forage or avoid predators to their experience. In their ocean life they had to forage and avoid predation just like wild fish. And if we were to use pink or chum salmon in our example, you would see that the hatchery effect only provides higher egg to fry survival, with the young fish being released with little or no artificial feeding, and therefore very little of that “soft easy living” in a hatchery. Because our hatchery fish here are from native wild broodstock, they are an F1 generation, one generation removed from the natural environment as juvenile fish. For easy arithmetic, we’re going to assign a natural reproductive value of 0.85 to these fish. Although they are a lot like their native wild counterparts, they’ve had some bad training when it comes to surviving as juveniles outside a hatchery in the natural world. The actual value could be higher, or lower, but this should serve to illustrate what happens, and it is consistent with limited real observations. In fact, the limited studies would support assigning an even lower value to F1 returns. If you were one of those students who avoided science and math, this part may get difficult, but this is written for those who can at least balance their own checkbooks.

When two native wild fish spawn in the natural environment, it goes like this:

(1.0 x 1.0 = 1.0) This means the offspring have the same genetic fitness as their parent generation, and they are as well equipped to survive as is possible. They will know how to forage and avoid predators as well as can be expected.

When two native broodstock hatchery fish spawn in the natural environment, it goes like this:

(0.85 x 0.85 = 0.7225) This means that the offspring, although like their parents in most ways, don’t have the same innate foraging and predator avoidance skills (and probably some others, but we're keeping it simple here). So they have a survival potential of not quite ¾ of what the native wild fish have. They will produce fewer smolts, and those smolts will survive and reproduce at a lower rate.

When a native broodstock hatchery fish spawns in the natural environment with a native wild fish, it goes like this:

(0.85 x 1.0 = 0.85) This means that the offspring will be more fit than a HxH cross, but less fit than a WxW mating. So any time a hatchery fish spawns with a wild fish, the potential productivity of that mating is less than a mating of two wild fish. This means that hatchery fish, even native broodstock hatchery fish, cannot benefit a wild population, EXCEPT under one condition I’ll get to in a minute.

While we’re doing some arithmetic, we should consider that most hatchery programs do not use native wild broodstock sources. They use long-term hatchery broodstocks. A key example of this is the Chambers Creek winter run hatchery steelhead in Washington. These broodstock came from a couple local wild populations in the 1940s, so they have been cultured and selected for favorable hatchery traits for over 60 years. Why do I bring this into the discussion? Because our native broodstock hatchery fish are F1 hatchery genetic material. This is important because they have potential productivity of 0.85, which is not that much less than 1.0. Our Chambers Creek hatchery broodstock are something like F20. Although it doesn’t work exactly like this, we’ll use simple math and say they have potential productivity of 0.038, or about 4% of what a wild fish has.

This explains why, after 60 years of releasing hundreds of thousands of Chambers Creek hatchery smolts each year from many dozens of rivers, the rivers are not crammed full of wild steelhead that resulted from these hatchery fish spawning in the natural environment. I think this 20 generation value of 4% is incorrect, and an exaggeration on the low side, but I cannot prove it. However, it does generally support why this particular hatchery stock performs so poorly when it spawns in the natural environment.

Are all hatchery broodstocks this bad when it comes to natural spawning? I don’t think so, but again, I don’t have data to prove one way or the other. However, our Skamania summer run broodstock, for another example, spawns closer to the same time as native wild summer runs do, unlike the Chambers fish that spawn months earlier. A general hypothesis is that the more the hatchery fish are like the wild fish they came from, the higher their reproductive success will be. See the F1 compared to F20 above. So pink and chum hatchery fish appear to be less affected by hatchery treatment than steelhead.

About that EXCEPTION I mentioned. Hatchery fish can help a wild population when the wild population is severely depressed and on the brink of extinction. An example would be the mid-Columbia River tributaries where the steelhead are ESA listed. All wild steelhead that escape and a large number of hatchery fish are allowed to spawn naturally. While those hatchery fish have low reproductive potential, they have some. A small number of juveniles may survive to smolt. By definition, those that do are more fit than the ones that don’t. Above I gave F1 native broodstock hatchery fish a potential productivity of 0.85. If fish can lose 15% of their potential in one generation, they can recover about the same amount in one generation. So with each passing generation, the few hatchery fish that do successfully reproduce increase their potential productivity by 15%. In theory, and this is still unproven theory, as populations of wild fish that are supplemented with hatchery fish, the population’s potential productivity will approach 1.0 and not be measurably different than original native wild steelhead, provided they are not continuously diluted with more hatchery fish matings. Well, that’s the plan, but it will be years before we know if the theory is correct.

But this does get at your last point about introductions around the world. Steelhead, brown trout, and salmon are thriving in waters far from their native range. They are from hatchery stocks. I can only surmise that they retained some potential productivity for natural environments and that with each passing generation it is increasing toward 1.0. These examples don’t prove, but they do support the hypothesis above that genetic fitness can increase and well as decrease by passing positive heritable traits from one generation to the next."

Your post above at 7:28 AM is indicative that you know less than you think you do. You wrote: ". . . they hatch, they grow, and they return. without us feeding them, just giving them a place to play. . . ." It appears you subjected hatchery origin fish to the selection of the natural environment, which is fine. What % returned? That is key, because to the extent that this type of action has been monitored, the adult return rate has been statistically no different from zero. That doesn't mean no fish ever survive to return, only that the number is so low that zero is within the error bounds of analysis. Then you wrote: ". . . help with egg boxes, which work. . . ." Technically you're correct, providing you're referring to pink, chum, or sockeye salmon. However, you're absolutely wrong with respect to monitored efforts done with chinook, coho, and steelhead. So you'll need to name the species, stock, time, place, and biologist in charge to buy some credibility about these eggs boxes that worked. Then you said, ". . . you can read anything you want into any written document, . . ." This too, is true. However people well informed on the subject, reading the same documents, tend to reach the same conclusions. The obvious exceptions of course, would be the scientists employed by tobacco companies who managed to conclude that smoking doesn't cause cancer. Your writings in this thread tend to place you in that catagory.

Sincerely,

Sg

Salmo, thank you for your time, So I understand that no hatchery fish is good for Wild populations. But if we are stuck with hatchery fish that are intended to spawn in the gravel and return at the same times as the wild fish in the system. then from your post i would conclude that the Broodstock would have a lower negitive effect to the wild populations then that of the chambers creek or skamania stocks when cross breeding occurs. And then in my mind I would conclude that if hatchery fish must be in systems they are intended to co-mingle and spawn in the gravel, then why not Broodstock as I would think it is the best of the two evils.

Matt

Salmo

Very clear, concise, and understandable.

Met'lheadMatt,

Actually I'm a fish advocate, and I'm not invariably opposed to hatchery fish. I've included hatchery as well as wild fish production as a part of several hydro settlements I've been involved in.

You asked, ". . . wehat is the best of the two evils.... Why do the scientist not want to answer this. . . ." Generally it's not the scientist's job to answer that question. The scientist's job is to provide information about the most likely outcome associated with several potential alternative actions. The decision between the choices is usually a policy decision and not a scientific one. That's how our society is organized.

If you're telling me that I'm stuck with having hatcheries and I should choose the lesser evil, I'd do this: Where wild steelhead populations are healthy I recommend an integrated program, supplementing with native wild broodstock, up to a level not exceeding 25% (this may need adjusting downward) of the natural production population size. Only unmarked wild fish would be used, so no more than F1 hatchery fish would ever enter the hatchery production cycle. Of course one should reasonably ask why supplement a healthy population, particularly when the limit of 25% is less than the inter-annual natural variation in run sizes.

I would also choose an integrated native wild broodstock program where the native fish are endangered, and action appears necessary to prevent the extinction of the native populations, like currently exists on Hood Canal tributaries.

In the case where a native wild steelhead run is not so healthy I'd recommend a segregated program, such as with Chambers Ck. Recent genetic studies on the Skagit and Cowlitz show that even after a half century of Chambers Ck releases, Chambers introgression among the wild population remains low. Good hatchery management practices have the potential to reduce it even lower. Of course at the rate things are going, with programs using Chambers stock nearly tipping into the abyss of hatchery population non-viability, this option may be removing itself from the menu we have available to choose from.

That's what I'd recommend based on what I know now if told I had to make the choices.

Sg

The "if the wild population is healthy" part begs another question...if the wild population is healthy, why the world would you want to put a hatchery stock in there on top of them in the first place?

Really, really have to have fish to harvest? That's cool if you do...but since 99% of the streams out there do not have healthy wild stocks, and many of them have hatchery fish, why don't you go harvest your fish there?

Fish on...

Todd

I thought I covered that part about questioning why one would supplement the healthy population with hatchery fish. The felt need to harvest is the only logical answer.

Sg

Todd, I don't think we need clipped fish, and could care less if I ever took one home, But if we are stuck with them, what is best is what I have been asking. it saddens me to cast in a nice tailout and pull out a big finned hen this time of year. knowing the area, I tell my buddy to get her boy friend, and out comes a little 6lb clipped turd. so my question was just which is better if we are stuck with the turds.

Sg. thank you for your input. makes things much clearer

It is interesting and fun to read everyone's opinions, whether based on science, experience, or what we wish were true. Good genes, bad genes, natural environments and hatchery (unnatural ?) environments, fitness and Darwinian evolution are all mentioned. Underlying the entire conservation is that we humans are like god, we can determine the survival of a species by directed actions that we implement.

In reality our interest is how we can take advantage of that species, Oncorhynchus mykiss in this discussion. From the standpoint of the fish, where the eggs are, where the fry emerge, and where they grow is their environment. Their genetic profile is not one of good and bad genes, in the case of the salmonids it is one with great duplication of genetic makeup which insures adaptation to a new environment in a few generations. Wild fish can become adapted to hatcheries in a few generations and the same can be said of hatchery fish adapting to a non hatchery environment. What is important to recognize is that as a species evolution will tend to maximize the number of individuals in whatever environment will support them. It seems obvious that steelhead, the anadromous O. mykiss have adapted quite well to hatcheries. Their wild counterparts are struggling in their changing environments though resident rainbow in Alaska and some inland water are doing well.

I like to think of these sorts of discussions from the standpoint of the fish. Imagine a few fish in some small tributary to the Yukon discussing humans. There might still be a few wild humans left in their region but they would admit most of the Pacific rim was inhabited by "hatchery humans", mothers well cared for before their birth, born in the artificial environment of a hospital, and reared in carefully controlled conditions, and their lives spent in an environment with few naturally challenging events. How many generations would pass before the ability to survive and reproduce in a new environment would be lost. It would not be many generations, I think the fish will be here long after we are gone.

Ain't it great when we all get testy? Ah you gotta love bad hair days, no offense to those lacking a top notch!

It is interesting though that one interlocks a response that has salmon and Steelhead in the same swipe as that is apple and oranges due to the fact that Steelhead really do not lend themselves to a hatchery environment, have different harvests regimes, just totally a world apart from salmon. Well I guess they both live in the water.

Question though. Are we chatting about hatcheries universal or site specific as it almost reads that some are utilizing the hatchery straying as a huge % of spawners, which may or may not be the case depending on location. Example in GH the Hump lacks a weir so integrated or not you got straying, big time and not good. Bingham & Skookumchuck integrated as integrated can be with a effective stop weir on one, dam on another. So you have removal of returning adults and the purpose of utilizing a wild / hatchery integrated stock is to minimize to impact to the natural spawning population by the few that do interbreed with the natural spawning population. What little interaction there is and the loss of some productivity ( that phase can start a real argument as to degree ) is out weighed by the additional harvest opportunity provided to all user groups. Some places the hatchery is located on a modest size trib you may have a weir failure under extreme conditions or a greater W/H mix than ideal but as it is a small portion of the streams reach and the fact that the natural spawner / hatchery interaction is mainly limited to that area, all bad? I suspect in the big picture no but ........

Now if this [Bleeeeep!] for tat is that all decisions regarding fish must put the ultimate and best outcome for the fish before all other considerations then this thread is irrelevant as you just entered fantasy land. You want a perfect scenario for salmon & Steelhead? End all harvest which includes C&R, mandatory growth management to zero stream impact, and land use reform tree farms & agriculture to again zero stream impact. Do that and the fish will do fine thank you.

But the human impacts will continue, the population will continue to expand, harvest will continue on so again it is about how to protect the creature the best we can while maintaining access to harvest. I ain't no bio folks just a farm boy with a 30 year relationship hands on with the creature and as much as it saddens me that is what will happen. Get over it, live with it and work to cut the best deal for the fish as well as the fisher. Real world not fantasy land.

Thought about this a bit but will put it out there as it is being discussed in many circles. As hatchery production is reduced and with it the tribal catch what are the odds the tribes go to court for damages due to the loss of harvest both hatchery and wild. My best , do not have a clue, but I think the folks that are preparing for this are right it will come and that will be one hell of a legal action.

Threads like this remind me of the Isaac Asimov quote - “Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.'”

Gotta' have an appreciation for that!

Sg

Salmo g. I love your posts... a great explanation up there.

so I have a question. I was talking to the owner of the Drift boat place in Monroe back about 10 years ago. and while talking he made the point that to get less destructive hatchery fish, we should build a better hatchery. in your post you said "Rearing the juvenile fish in a hatchery environment unavoidably selects for traits that are conducive to survival in the hatchery environment, not the natural environment. Why? Because the two environments are significantly different."

so how about this for a solution. I fish up by the Wallace hatchery all the time. its close I have friends there... not the pristine natural environment, but there are fish there. anyway on the way back to the access point we cross May Creek. this little spot above the rack has no fish that I can see, I know there are trout above that but not my point. is there a way to raise the number of babies in there with supplemental feeding and planting of in basin broodstock in the natural creek on the property? could we raise the density enough to gain more then ma nature would provide, while still keeping it as natural as possible. making the difference between nature and hatchery smaller. that way we would get more fish back and less differences, thus less problems, back. its not going to produce Cowlitz type numbers, but it is also not chambers creek stock type problems. if we can improve your .085 to a .095 productivity this way, even if it cost us 30% less smolts for the cost. it could help give us more fish to catch, and less damage to the wilds/natives if they strayed.

in other words can we use small creeks, that have no access to the sea now because of blockages. as hatcherys to broduce a better plant then would be provided from the tanks at the hatchery.

and yes it might just be better to unblock that stream so it could repopulate with wild fish, but I do not think that is coming soon.

Cncfish,

If memory serves, May Ck is blocked because it is the surface water supply for the Wallace hatchery. Allowing anadromous fish above the weir means increased disease problems in the hatchery. As for using small creeks above barriers as "nature scape" hatcheries, you have to consider the range of flows for 365 days, not just the days you observe it. That means flood flows in the winter and nearly dried up streams in late summer, both of which are serious problems to fish culture. I forget the name, but a side channel on a BC stream was used to raise more natural fish, with supplemental feeding to increase overall productivity. It works, sort of. That is, it is expensive, and if we applied today's genetics technology to the situation, I bet it would show we were still creating hatchery fish, not a fish comparable to wild fish.

Additionally, the Yakima Tribe used BPA funding to build and operate a nature scape hatchery at Cle Elum. I have not visited it, so I can't report on the design details, but the intent was to rear hatchery fish that survive as well as wild fish. The results I heard about so far: survival is comparable to other hatchery fish.

It appears we are a society accustomed to curing every ill with a pill, we cannot accept that technology cannot duplicate wild salmon and steelhead, at least not yet. I'm sure we will keep trying.

Sg

The Columbia River tribes are probably the only groups that can afford to build nature scape hatcheries. It is much more complicated than just finding an underutilized stream, as you have indicated. The Nez Perce tribe has built a nature scape chinook hatchery. Anyone interested can check the link below for the details. The second link relates to initial results of the program. Nature scape hatcheries make nice parks, if nothing else. The Weaver Creek spawning channel in BC is a fish tourist destination to view spawning salmon.

Nez Perce Hatchery

Hatchery Chinook

That Snake River Fall Chinook program is a genetic mess. I posted on this at the end of my 2011 Buoy 10 thread after I found out one of the URB's we bonked was actually a Snake River fall fish from Lyons Ferry Hatchery.

That program is being run without much regard for genetic risk management. Already, the wild fish are no longer genetically distinguishable from hatchery fish... so many hatch fish allowed onto the gravel that the wild gene pool has literally been swamped by hatchery influence.

Bottom line, what they are using for "wild" broodstock in the hatchery ain't necessarily so. Opens up a lot of critical questions that no one seems to want to address.

You should check out the Upper Columbia hatchery and wild fish situation. Steelhead season was closed the first of Jan above Rock Island Dam (except the Okanogan) because of possible ESA restrictions, but there's several thousand hatchery steelies still in the system. The genetics of the steelies are all jumbled together (hatchery/wild crosses from the hatcheries) from what I've read/heard.

Salmo.......

Do you mean that May Creek is now extinct of the wild steelhead I used to catch there as a kid?

Not long ago, you said that May Creek has a run of wild steelhead. Could you clear this up?