Ahhhh......words to apply for a grant with.....and make a career with......forever.

"Fish are complicated"

" ... mass manufacturing salmon for harvest isn't necessarily a sin. But if we're gonna crank out factory fish for harvest, then let's structure fisheries to selectively target those fish and let's harvest the crap out of them. "

We have tribal programs that do just this and do it well. If you really mean this, then we have a basis for conversation, but you have to be open to having the conversation.

"The truth is that harvest and recovery are at diametrically opposed odds against one another. No if's and's or but's, the promotion of one comes at the direct expense of the other. We can either do a decent job of each in isolation, or a $hitty job of both in combination."

This appears to contradict the gist of your original post as well as the quote above. If we are producing fish for harvest and are able to harvest them with low impact on natural production, then we are promoting both harvest and recovery, in my opinion. I guess I missed the point of the original post, so I do withdraw my support. I still do agree with the sentiment that the purpose of any hatchery program must be clear and that the program must be designed to support that purpose and evaluated to see how well it's doing that. Hopefully that leaves us a least a small point of agreement and at least a small basis for a rational discussion.

What guidelines are you referring to? The tribes don't follow the same guidelines the state does for the most part. The only similarity would be in following HSRG recommendations, which most tribal hatcheries have done.

With a little search or an email, you could probably locate HGMPs from your local tribes to see what it is that their hatchery programs are doing.

Your idea of shutting down hatchery recovery programs won't work for the most part. Unfortunately, many hatchery recovery programs will function as gene banks for the future. You have to ask why the native population crashed in the first place and then ask what is being done to support additional fish into a habitat that can't support them.

McMahon, I am very familiar with HGMP's for every hatchery program in Puget Sound. Those documents only describe the current operation of each program. They do not describe operational guidelines for each program. In Puget Sound, if you do a little research, you will find that the co-managers (both tribes and WDFW) have jointly developed and submitted to NOAA a single hatchery resource management plan that contains what they call low risk hatchery guidelines for every type of hatchery program. These are in Appendix A of that RMP if you wish to check. You will also find that in Chapter 6 of the Puget Sound salmon recovery plan sent to NOAA, the same co-managers commit to implementing those same guidelines. So you know, those guidelines were developed back in 1999, yet today, few if any program are consistent with them. Therefore I believe that my question to Two Dogs is quite valid. Are those still the guidelines (I have seen no others in writing)? If they are, when do you intend to make your hatchery programs consistent with them? If they are not your guidelines, where might I find them? All very reasonable questions in my mind.

Add to this spectrum of "harvest" to "conservation" hatchery programs the ones that are nominally for "harvest"...but actually contribute the bulk of the spawners for the "natural" run, too.

Shut down a lot of Columbia River tributary Chinook hatchery programs and the amount of "wild spawners" will go right down the tubes, too, since that's where a lot of their spawners come from...the hatcheries.

Fish on...

Todd

The problem is this -- the HGMPs, the hatchery RMP, and those 1999 guidelines were developed in isolation. There was very little reference to harvest programs and zero reference to habitat restoration, and, most importantly, habitat protection. But, for recovery to happen, all these Hs must work together. If they don't, you run into the problem of producing fish in conservation hatcheries with no habitat for the fish to utilize. The comanagers and the HSRG have also ignored the fact, now starting to be demonstrated with research, that hatchery-origin fish can have a role in recovery, the nature of the role depends on the status of the particular watershed involved. I originally thought this was the point of the original post, which is why I thought it was good.

As far as the tribes or the state following or not following something, I reject the "us vs,. them" framework. As far as your not being up on the work done since the original HGMPs were filed, I'm sorry that the work of various government agencies is not fully open to you because lots of work has been done since then. I know there is resistance to opening up the processes, some of which is, unfortunately, valid because of the propensity of some organizations to file lawsuits. But I have always pushed for a fully open process, and i suggest that everyone here demand nothing less.

Now that was a very well done post TD.

Yes Slab, fish are complex critters. However it is the intersection of human activity and fish where the situation becomes really complex. And dealing with that requires more than a grant or series of grants. It's that intersection that requires resource management agencies working for as long as the intersection persists. Seems like a small price to pay for the benefits that accrue from the human intersection with fishery resources. Would you prefer the alternative of no grants, and no managment, just using up the resource like it was non-renewable, and then moving on - to where - the next planet?

Sg

Two dogs, those guidelines were not developed in isolation but rather as a collaborative effort between the NWIFC, the Puget Sound tribes, WDFW, and NOAA fisheries. There were not only hatchery people that developed those guidelines but harvest managers as well as folks involved with salmon recovery for all the participating agencies. In addition, every person that had any input to the Puget Sound salmon recovery plan that again was jointly developed by the tribes and WDFW had the opportunity to review the section on artificial production. If these guidelines were not appropriate every reviewer of that plan had an opportunity to fix them, or at the least, say they needed fixing.

Also to be clear, I did not say that I was not familiar with work that has gone on since the HGMP's and RMP's were developed. I am very familiar with work done since that time, including your "new" watershed Hatchery Action Implementation Plans (HAIP's). I also happen to agree with you that a coordinated effort across the H's is necessary to lead to any progress in recovering salmon. I just wonder how that is going to happen when there doesn't seem to be any certainty on what the current commitments are in the hatchery "H" and certainly no commitment across at least two of the H's - harvest and hatcheries - that the composition of natural spawners may actually be limiting the productivity of many natural Chinook populations to a degree that is similar to the habitat limitations that the co-managers always mention. This issue certainly was not dealt with in the most current Chinook harvest RMP and that would be the place the most immediate effect could be had.

I would prefer that Region 6 WDFW and thier NOF process, get off the management bit of "kill as many fish as you can" before the fish get to the river sportsmen and past the QIN and NT gill nets. The foresight in Region 6 is for harvest......this clearly shows by allowing a 24 hour "Chum fishery" for the NT, at a time when the Chum numbers are down........AND to allow NO Chum for sports..........

Me thinks....Region 6 speaks with "forked tongue".....now put that in your "no management and using up resource" pipe and smoke a few bowls full.

NOPE... that's because none of our local hatcheries are set up for recovery.

They're either outright harvest programs or mitigation (which basically is mitigating forgone natural production for.... you guessed it... more HARVEST).

No doubt about it, harvest takes THE prime seat at the head of the table in Region 6. And lip-service aside, neither of the co-managers' actions demonstrate that either gives a dam about conservation in a purely harvest-oriented context.

Recovery? WTF is that?

If you want wild fish, quit fishing.
If you want lots of fish, turn the harvest/production of fish over to private interests as that is what they desire.
If you want a life long career producing paper ..... work for the government.
The critter itself may be complicated....and certainly it is over-thought to death....but producing them is simple.

Why not divide the rivers?

All wild/no fish kill

All harvest, plant the hell out of it.