Perhaps this is analogous:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterile_insect_technique

…flood a system with sterile fish (no matter the origin), and resultant cross-breeding weakens target viability.

Granted, fish hatcheries do this unintentionally, rather than intentionally, but documented results are similar.

If the F1's are unclipped, what's the guarantee they're not being cycled right back into the hatch broodstock?

Doc, I was wanting to increase the wild component, Salmo enlighten me, that they would just end up in nets as surplus, the Broodstock would have to be clipped, and they would not be bred from, this would eliminate Out of basin stock and the mingling that happens,

I was thinking chipping the f1 so you never rebreed what has gone through the hatchery a generation before.

This subject has really got the wheels in my mind turning.

What I had envisioned seemed like a very simple and easy solution to help bolster wild stocks.

As long as you do not introduce outside genes into a system. It seems like hatcheries could help if done right.

The mission statement for the hatchery would have to change to "Help wild stocks reach maximum potential for self propagation.

It also seems the political part of should we harvest or let nature do its thing is a huge equation.

I definitely need more info but I must say I feel much more enlightened about the subject.

Only problem is with each answer , I have more questions.

I just can't believe there are still "REAL" wild fish remaining in any river which has a hatchery. Natural spawn yes but two clipped fish make it up river spawn from what I'm hearing here those are wild? Only suplimental if the hatchery take clipped and a non-clipped fish reproduce makes no sence to me who's to say the non-clipped fish wasn't two lucky hatchery fish which made a natural spawn.
This being said "let the bathing begin"

Spoken like a true scientist!

Met'lheadMatt,

The perfect wild broodstock program does what I think you're describing. Only unmarked wild fish are used as broodstock each year. So there are never any hatchery fish in the system beyond F1 fish, which had wild parents, but the F1s spent their juvenile life history in a hatchery environment. This is how the Snider Creek program on the Sol Duc operated as far as I know. This is how the Vedder River steelhead program operates in B.C., and it has been going on since the mid-1970s. Unfortunately, I don't think any genetic profiling occurred pre-program so that the population as it exists today could be compared with the pre-hatchery population.

You mentioned two things about the Satsop broodstock program that need some clearing up. First you said you released juvenile fish early, before imprinting occurs. That's impossible because imprinting begins as early as the eyed egg stage. While it's possible to hold smolts at a location for a couple weeks prior to release and have them return to that site, that site is just one of many locations that the fish is imprinted on. After hanging around the release site for a while, as the fish matures sexually it will try to find sites it imprinted on earlier in its life for a spawning location. What makes the pre-release imprinting site work better is when the smolts are transferred to another river basin, so then they cannot find earlier imprinting sites without leaving the basin they are in.

Another thing about releasing juveniles early, if they are young and a long way from smolting, like a year or so, then they must rear in the natural environment. Two bad things happen there. One, they started their juvenile rearing in a hatchery, so the fish best suited to rearing in natural habitats were already culled out as fry mortalities in the hatchery, and the survivors are the juveniles that were best suited to hatchery culture, and are less fit already for rearing to smolt stage in the natural environment. Two, those juveniles when released into whatever natural rearing environment you put them in will now compete with actual wild juvenile steelhead for food and space. The only way this avoids adversely affecting the wild population is if you have habitat that is not occupied by wild juvenile steelhead, or other wild fish.

You also said that during artificial spawning of your wild broodstock you selected large fish to mate with large fish and got results that pleased you. Well, that's not how it works in the natural environment, and your selective breeding through artificial mate selection may result is some large recruits subsequently, but you'll pay for that over time by unintentionally selecting fish that are less fit, even though you probably thought you were doing the opposite. There is a reason why all the steelhead in the population are not 20 pounds or larger, and the reasons have to do with overall fitness factors. A healthy population needs all size and timing and geographic location elements of diversity if you want the largest number of subsequently returning adult fish.

Minesgold,

Interestingly you're not the last person who still finds it hard to believe that there are any remaining wild fish that have no hatchery genetic trace in them. The reason I find it interesting is because the subject comes up frequently in online forums like this one, and reports are cited that indicate that wild fish, unsullied by hatchery genetics, indeed still exist. I suppose unbelievers still exist because many forum readers either don't bother to read the reports, or don't understand them, or are of the ilk whose minds are already made up, and they will forever remain unconvinced by any evidence that doesn't support their unsupported belief.

The information that dispels your belief is out there, if you're open-minded enough to read it, understand it, and accept rationally supported conclusions. Since you're in Burlington, you may know something about the Skagit River, which happens to be an excellent example. The Skagit has had hatchery fish of one species or another since about 1916 or 17, and it still has wild fish that have remained wild and native. How can that be, you ask? Well, I'm glad you asked, assuming you are asking. First off, the earliest hatchery attempts were dismal failures for the overwhelming most part. Adult broodstock of all species were captured in a variety of locations, and the eggs were hatched out at certain stations around the basin that has been built for that purpose. When the fry were hatched, they were either released on-site or taken back to the stream the adults had been collected from. So what's the harm in that? Well, as hatchery fish culture developed, we learned that un-fed hatchery fry like those were have a survival rate to smolt of almost zero. Not always zero, but almost. So even though a million eggs might have been hatched, they may have produced zero smolts, or maybe a few hundred. Now that we know that smolt to adult survival rates range from less than one percent to ten percent, or only occasionally very much higher, very, very few adult salmon or steelhead ever returned from the early decades of hatchery work in the Skagit. All those adults whose eggs were harvested for hatchery use would have been more productive had that been left in their natal streams to spawn.

OK, so hatchery programs became much better at producing fish. Fortunately, as much as juvenile hatchery fish were scattered around the watershed, a very large number of locations have never been stocked. Why, you ask? Because stocking occurs where it is easy. Easy, as in having a bridge or other convenient place to dump fish from the truck into the stream.

And then we have the more recently acquired knowledge that hatchery fish have much lower survival when they reproduce in the natural environment than their wild counterparts. Lucky us, I guess, because we sure figured those hatchery fish that spawned naturally would produce returning adults, just like the wild fish do. I say lucky because, as much as we unintentionally tried to screw up native fish runs, we were only partly successful. And so, for these reasons, and probably a few others, we still have native wild fish that have either no, or only a limited, hatchery genetic influence. Pretty cool, huh?

2Many,

You can agree with a position that is wrong all you want, but it will never make you right. But you probably knew that.

Sg

Sg - I agree. However, there is a line of evidence that is developing that suggests that body size in adult Pacific salmon on the spawning grounds is, and has been, a competitive advantage. And that by NOT selectively spawning the larger adults (M/F), we are unintentionally reducing the size of the subsequent adult offspring.

The theory goes like this:

On the spawning grounds, large males tend to outcompete smaller males for the "right" to spawn with whatever female is there. Larger body size and aggression have alot to do with that. Ditto for larger females. They produce larger eggs (which can produce larger fry, which then have a competitive advantage in the stream) and they can dig a deeper redd, which protects the eggs better than a shallower redd. Either way, a large body size on the spawning grounds is a plus for adult Pacific salmon.

However, there is a counter-acting competitive pressure in the ocean. In order to grow to a large size, the adults need to spend proportionally more time in the ocean (duh). As we know, the ocean is a high risk/high reward environment. The longer they stay there, the bigger they get, and the larger the competitive advantage when they spawn. But the longer they stay there, the better chance they'll get eaten. So, there is a competitive advantage to those adults who don't spend much time there since dead adults (e.g., consumed by orca) can't spawn at all.

So, there may be a zing/zang to the competitive advantage and disadvantage of a large body size. Now, if we take away the large body size advantage in the hatchery environment, by NOT intentionally spawning larger adults, the genes for a longer ocean adult phase are lost. But the competitive disadvantage of the ocean phase remains. Indeed, it might be considerably larger since human harvest is a major contributor of adult ocean mortality. The result is that we may be losing the genes for longer ocean phase, and a large body size, by non selective spawning in the hatchery.

Indeed, a smaller adult body size is apparent to alot of folks, and not just to fish biologists. But I will not subscribe a reduction in body size to current hatchery spawning practices just yet. However, I don't think we fully understand the impact of (almost) random mating in the hatchery, since that is NOT what happens in the wild.

I welcome your thoughts.......

OK I think I have a better understanding of the short comings of hatchery programs.

So it sounds like 1 issue hatcheries have is they cannot produce quality fish.

Even if you take a wild pair of fish and use them to stock the pens. Its more then the genetics of the pair that's a factor in healthy fish. In a hatchery environment fish are given ideal conditions to survive, even the weaker of the offspring. The same offspring that would of been culled naturally because they didn't have "the right stuff" to make it in the wild.

So in essence all a hatchery is doing is giving fish that shouldn't have been able to make it naturally a better chance of surviving to adulthood when in nature they would have been weeded out at earlier stages in life.

The fish that come from the hatchery are better adapted to survival in hatcheries and not necessarily in nature, even though the parents were of wild origin.

So even though hatcheries may be able to create more returning fish it doesn't necessarily mean they are as strong and healthy as what would of occurred in nature because they didn't go through the "school of hard knocks"

So a hatchery is basically more of a quantity factor then a quality factor.
At least this is what I am assuming and we all know what happens when we assume.

FF, I think you're getting it.



I would word this differently: The fish that come from the hatchery are better adapted to surviving a hatchery life cycle. The hatchery life cycle includes considerable time in nature, once they are planted.

Salmo G,
Your insight is great! I love reading yours and Smalma's posts.

Genotype: What is stored in their genetic material.

Phenotype: What traits or behaviors are exhibited or expressed.

This is the "nature vs. nurture" element...they have a lot more in their genetics than what they generally express, and what they express is often a factor of their environment rather than their genetics.

The very first generation of hatchery fish begin significant changes in their phenotypical expression, and those changes not only persist through the generations but can oftentimes be reinforced and made even more significant.

In spite of the general love of broodstocking programs by guides up and down the west coast, not one single time ever have they been shown scientifically to do any good at all, and have frequently...well, always when they have bothered to check them scientifically...found to do more harm than good to the wild stocks.

The problem is usually trying to serve two masters...make fish for harvest and make more wild fish...the problem is that you can't do both.

If you are making them for harvest, then just say so and do it...but you may as well just harvest the wild fish that you killed to put into the program, as they will produce more fish overall than the ones in the program will (but won't be clipped).

If you were making them to help wild fish there are two things you'd need to do...first, not harvest them, and second, suspend science and pretend that it's actually working.

Fish on...

Todd

All of that plus, as Salmo said, hatcheries fuel overharvest of wild stocks in almost every case, regardless of direct impacts form interactions between wild and hatchery fish. We cant seem to get past that. So many examples.

Welcome home Todd

This is to MhM and FF. Sorry if I confused anyone with that post.

I re-read MhM's post about clipping only 1/2 the F1's .... effectively allocating 1/2 the hatchery production to harvest (fin-clipped bonkable fish) and the other half of hatchery production to "supplement" the gravel.

In that scenario, some of the clipped F1's could be harvested but a considerable number would still incidentally escape to the gravel.... along with all the unclipped F1's that are purposely allowed to escape onto the gravel.

The gravel is now over-run with hatch F1's, outnumbering wild-borne spawners by a factor 2-3-fold. This is genetic swamping at its best.

And what about the broodfish for the next generation of hatchery F1's? If the original F1's weren't all clipped, there's no way to be certain that the "wild" adipose-intact brood fish being taken back into the hatchery aren't actually of hatchery origin. You think you're producing a new crop of F1's but in fact you're producing some F2's or F2 hybrids.

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So lets double back and say all the hatch-origin fish will be clipped to prevent recycling hatchery-origin F1's back into the hatchery. This definitely keeps the genetics of hatchery production much cleaner. But what becomes of all that clipped production?

It returns as a harvestable surplus.... a simple commodity.... a free-swimming dollar bill with fins minus one.

Rest assured that someone is going to want to harvest them.... and half will be taken by tribal gillnets.... and those nets don't give a dam whether or not the fish is missing a fin. Net harvest will be ramped up (more nets more days) to match the volume of available hatchery fish... whatever it takes to catch their "half".... count on it. Wild fish WILL suffer from the increased exploitation.

So under the current hatch/harvest regime, the wild fish get screwed either way....

They either get swamped by hatchery fish on the gravel -OR-
They are hit with more gill-netting effort.

Take your pick, but neither seems to boost populations of wild steelhead.

Doc, Todd, if 2k hatchery out of basin or Wild Broodstock return to a system, and 10% stray and mingle with the wilds on the gravel. If the out of basin have little to know fitness even when one parent is wild! or the wild Broodstock mingles and has an 85% fitness. Which would be more beneficial to the wild fish.

We catch clipped fish all season long, their is not much run segregation any longer, many spawned kelts, and more as the season progresses

In a good world we would not have hatchery fish, but that is not going to happen anytime soon. So if cross breeding is bound to happen, which is better, losing 50 pair of wild fish to broodstocking or having 200 out of basin crossing with 200 wild fish on the gravel.

Todd, your statement of making hatchery fish or increasing wild production, you can't have both. But you can, 200 Broodstock crossed with 200 wild would have an 85% fitness or better on the gravel! those same 200 wilds crossed with Out Of Basin stock would have very little to no fitness. So a loss of 200 wilds. You would have a better hatchery fish and a more viable wild/Broodstock cross fish on the gravel, carrying the same gene's.

Cohoangler,

Yes, it's a bit more complicated than what I posted. OK, a lot more complicated. I wanted to present a simple description consistent with a 5-paragraph theme, instead of a 16 page essay. Natural mating and effective spawning is anything but random. It's another example of the more I learn, the more I know that I don't know.

However, if large male x large female wild matings consistently led to the highest average survival, then larger average size fish is what we would observe in the populations. Yet we don't. Other selective factors are at work, in addition to ocean predation and harvest pressure. Until we have a better notion of what is going on and controlling the population phenotypes, then trying to simulate what we observe in natural production populations in artificial production seems like the preferred route to me.

Fishyfeller,

Looks like you're a pretty quick study.

And as Todd, Milt, and Eyefish mention, the artificial production of fish, whether old school hatchery production or integrated wild broodstock or any other variation, inevitably leads to increased harvest rates on the wild native populations. And those populations in most instances are not abundant enough to consistently withstand the higher harvest rate that occurs.

Sg

Salmo, if you just replace the out of basin hatchery production, with an equal amount of Broodstock production. How does this increase the wild harvest. Equal is equal. I know that the artificial production overall increases harvest, but are they ever going to allow us to stop it?. And if there are surplus wild escapement, and they are set for harvest, would it not be better to use some as Broodstock, since they most likely would end up in the nets anyway. If we had allotted them for Broodstock, it might lesson the harvest days as it would reduce the surplus, and we could rid ourselves of the out of basin cross degradation.

Which is the best of two evils?

The best of two evils is to not mine the wild fish to make hatchery fish, and then collect the hatchery fish either at hatcheries or in fish boxes when they return.

Killing wild fish to make hatchery fish is removing them from the river as much as any gillnet or fishing lure does, and leaving them in the river will make more wild fish than killing them ever will.

I was a big supporter of broodstock programs in the past, but since I've done a lot of research on them I've completely changed my mind about them...

It's not a matter of opinion, it's a matter of fact...every time, every single time they have actually looked at a broodstock program scientifically it has been found to produce less fish, and less fit fish, than if the wild fish had just been left in the river.

Every time.

That's a good enough reason right there to not make any more of them.

Fish on...

Todd

Met'lheadMatt,

Personally, I think the jury is still out on which is the lesser of two evils, meaning I don't know. Todd is more certain than I, but that places him contrary to the HSRG (Hatchery Scientific Review Group). The HSRG modeling of the EF Lewis River concludes that using an integrated wild steelhead broodstock will increase the average population of wild steelhead - from 564 to 587 - a whooping 23 additional wild fish more than just leaving the wild steelhead to reproduce on their own, free of the hand of man. Is it really worth it?

Sg

Todd, Salmo,

I am not thinking mine the wild fish, I am thinking if they are surplus, and destined for the nets with additional harvest days, As Salmo mentioned earlier. Then if we lay claim to a percentage of " the Surplus". This should reduce their allowable take, and reduce net days when the wild fish are in the system. Helping the wild fish in more the one way.

If 200k out of basin eggs are used, and we plan on the same egg take from the Surplus wilds. The overall returning numbers will be the same, no wilds lost, just transferred from net to Broodstock, fewer net days will occur as a result. Bonus. For the wild fish. And the fish reared in the hatchery will be of the same origin as those reared in the system, so in effect, the wild fish that mingle with those that don't return to the hatchery will create a much more viable smolt then then they would from out of basin stock. Since run timing has morphed into the entire run.

Todd, no mining, just re-allocating. And because of their reduced take it will me fewer days with nets in the water. And more wilds to get past.