Northern Sound tribes speak out against steelhead lawsuit

Four area tribes are concerned about legal action that could stop the release of hatchery steelhead into northern Puget Sound this spring.
The state Department of Fish and Wildlife has said hatchery steelhead will not be released unless it can reach a legal agreement with the Wild Fish Conservancy, an organization that filed a .... http://www.goskagit.com/all_access/north...7fdfd858a.html

finally!!!

Where is the support from the commercial guys?

The NI commercials don't fish steelhead so this makes their life easier. Less bycatch to throw back.

but the NI commercial harvest anything and everything in the ocean And the mass amount of bait harvested and destruction from the trawlers is unbelievable

the incidental catch of steelhead in fisheries targeting salmon is also a major problem throughout their range. Sockeye fisheries on the Skeena River take a heavy toll on returning summer steelhead and the world famous Dean River loses hundreds if not thousands of returning adults to chum fisheries in the Dean Channel in many years. These problems are not unique to British Columbia, and steelhead migrating in the Columbia River are routinely caught in gillnets targeting salmon. In response to concerns about bycatch of fragile wild populations and non-target species the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife is working with tribal and non-tribal commercial fishermen to develop selective fisheries on hatchery salmon and steelhead which allow for the safe release of wild fish.

But since, in WA at least, none of the NI fleet can legally land or sell a steelhead the fact that hatchery production of them is curtailed or eliminated actually makes their lives easier. Why would the protest making it easier to comply with the law?

You do realize that steelhead are migratory fish and they don't just stay in PS

and majority of the PNW steelhead head to alaska in the winter time and tend to be caught in the seine/gill nets throughout the summer

You sure about that? The story I have heard about steelhead in marine waters is that they are out in the high-seas, sometimes almost to Asia. had not heard that they were taken in in-shore salmon fisheries. Those are supposedly local Alaskan fish.j

What you heard is correct steelhead unlike salmon head directly out to the highseas based on the El nino or La nina current will influence where the fish head first. steelhead generally migrate north and west in the spring and south and east during the autumn and winter.
Studies have shown of hatchery steelhead caught off kodiak from the alsea river and hatchery fish from idaho in the gulf of alaska in tralwer.

Steelhead are rarely caught in trawl gear.

Steelhead often migrate directly into high-seas waters during their first summer in the ocean.  One fish released from a hatchery in Idaho swam to the center of the Gulf of Alaska, a distance of about 890 nautical miles offshore, in only two months.  Another from Oregon's Alsea River hatchery was caught south of Kodiak five months later, a distance of at least 1200 miles.  These fish must be cruising at speeds of 10 miles per day or more.  While most other species of Pacific salmon initially migrate through along the coast of British Columbia and Alaska, juvenile steelhead appear to head directly to the open ocean.
These rapid migrations into subarctic waters of the North Pacific do not apply to all steelhead.  Steelhead from the southern part of their range, south of the Rogue River, may not migrate to the north after entering the ocean.  Instead, these fish remain in productive upwelling regions south of Cape Blanco their entire ocean life.  And some steelhead from the Rogue and Klamath Rivers, for example, return as “half-pounders’ after only a few months in the ocean.  
 
Occasionally, steelhead released from a hatchery at the same time have been captured together in the high seas.  Coded-wire tag recoveries of fish, up to three years after release from hatcheries, suggest that some tagged steelhead traveled together in the open ocean.

So the smolts will be big and fat when they (if they) plant em huh? What happens if they plant the smolts 3month later then they should of, are they going to come back 3 months late or will they still return Thanksgiving - Newyears since they're Chambers Creek stock?

If they are planted three months late a goodly portion of them will probably not ever leave the river.

Fish on...

Todd

That is definitely an issue if they residulize and mature enough to spawn with wild steelhead, something that is also overlooked as an introgression impact.

Some other food for thoughts on the diminishing returns.
http://vimeo.com/m/53571691

Double Haul -
I fully understand the potential for residualized smolts to be a source for introgression between the hatchery and wild population.

But something to keep in mind is that once a hatchery steelhead smolt opts to not to migrate to the salt they essentially become a "catchable" rainbow trout that has been released into stream environment. There are a number of studies over the last 50 years that have demonstrated that such fish have very high short term mortalities rarely surviving more than a month or two in wild streams.

The vast majority of those residuatlized smolts like their parents will not reach sexually mature until they are 3 years old. In other words to be potential spawners they would have to survive for two years. The chance of an individual fish surviving that long is virtually nil. If a rare fish did manage to pull of that survive miracle the majority would still be temporally separated from the wild spawners. Obviously that degree of that separation would depend on the wild populations that potential hatchery spawners would interact. In the north Sound area where these hatchery fish were to be released that degree of separation is a great as anywhere in the state.

Curt

The other option for the residualized smolts is that they will smolt the next year or the year after one. One year of scale samples from the Hoh had age-2 and age-3 hatchery smolts that returned as adults.

While residual smolts if they survive could potentially become smolts in later years the data specific the north Sound Rivers (the basins whose hatcheries are covered by this suit) that does not happen very often. I often reviewed the scale data for the Skagit and Snohomish collected during the 1980s (from both sport creel and tribal catches) and the contribution from potential residual Chamber Creek smolts were extreme low.

Curt

There's some risk that if the hatchery fish are released a few months later that they will residualize and contribute as spawners to the steelhead pool, but I was referring more to the fact that they'd likely just die before doing much of all, including returning as adults.

Fish on...

Todd

Residualized rainbow/steelhead also contribute significantly to direct mortality on newly hatched juvenile salmon. They eat'em like candy. So if stocking of juvenile steelhead/rainbows is delayed, the impact on salmon can be enormous, particularly fall Chinook.

Chambers Creek fish have a terrible return rate under the best of circumstances...anything that throws the timing off would likely reduce the already terrible rate considerably.

If they are going to be released they need to be released on time!

Fish on...

Todd