WFC on PS Hatchery Steelhead

All,

I was forwarded this email from a friend this morning. Thought you might find it interesting.

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Dear Scientist,

We are asking you along with other scientists in the fields of aquatic ecology, fisheries management, and conservation genetics to add your name to an important scientific sign-on letter. Our hope is that your contribution will help inform the public and make clear the scientific consensus regarding the risks posed by Chambers Creek hatchery programs to the recovery of wild Puget Sound steelhead. Your participation will reflect your understanding of the issue as a professional scientist and will not represent the views or policies of the organization or agency that employs you.

Despite scientific evidence to the contrary, much of the public continues to believe that Chambers Creek steelhead programs do no harm to, or are even essential to, the recovery of wild steelhead. This letter articulates the state of the science as it applies to Chambers Creek steelhead hatchery programs. Your participation will advance the public's understanding of this complex issue, creating support for the use of the best available science.

Click here to review the letter and relevant peer-reviewed literature, and add your name. Please contact me if you have any questions. Also, please forward our request to your colleagues with experience in relevant scientific disciplines, with an invitation for them to also support this educational effort.

Thank you for your contribution to this important issue.
Sincerely,

Kurt Beardslee
Executive Director
Wild Fish Conservancy

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I couldn't get the original hyperlinks to work, click here to view the letter: http://salsa4.salsalabs.com/o/50835/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=11974

Is the Wild Fish Conservancy solar powered or do they purchase hydroelectric power?

They run on bio-fuel....

....their own bullsh!t.

Wow! I'm surprised an informed scientist would sign that letter. It contains sentences that are accurate, and sentences that cloud the issue, and sentences that are incorrect. It will be interesting to see who ends up signing it.

Sg

Mostly WFC I would guess.

Ya, so far most signatures are w f c employees

Voluntarily???

The whole idea of recovering Wild fish in this state is a farce, you have systems like the Queets, with little human impact on it's watershed, barely struggle to make annual escapement, if it does at all.
Then you have a river to the south of us , in Oregon, called the Umpqua, that this year will get a return of close to 50k wild fish returning, farmed along and logged all around, our foot print is all over it's waterahed.
The difference between the two is NETTING, and as long as it continues to happen at the rate it does, Wild fish will continue to struggle. Both have the same ocean concerns, both have sportsmen intervention, Umpqua probably more. Only thing different is no netting in Oregon.
And they even have Hatchery intervention.........

One other very b ig difference between the Umpqua and Queets is productivity. The Umpqua, according to the bios I have talked to, has a base rock that puts nutrients into the stream, making it productive if fish life. Like limestone streams, many of the Great lakes tibs, and so on. The Queets has a sterile base rock, so it needs nutrients from other sources (salmon). Since that is not possible in WA, the Queets productivity stays low and produces few steelhead. It is producing at capacity, for its productivity, but we are limiting that capacity.

easy fix. Everyone sign my Limestone quarry petition for the queets

Though I believe the impact of gillnetting is sometimes exaggerated, I don't feel that way about the case of the Queets. There are weeks (generally coinciding with the peak salmon and steelhead runs) where that system gets drift netted 6 and 7 days. Regardless of what you believe about whether or not that's fair, it's certainly not conducive to the large escapements required, to Carcassman's point, to make the otherwise sterile environment productive.

As with all local streams, however, despite what seems like excessive gillnetting to me, I suspect the far greater impact occurs in ocean fisheries to the north. I've probably said it before, but I think the real danger of hatchery fish is that wherever they are present, the aim is to kill every one of them above what is needed to produce the next generation. We attempt to accomplish that goal through fisheries. Especially in the case of commercial fisheries (to a lesser but very meaningful extent in sport fisheries), wild fish get killed in said fisheries; LOTS of them.

Whatever the impact of the genetic introgression WSC points to, I have to believe it's a drop in the bucket compared to the chronic overharvest of wild fish in fisheries targeting hatchery fish. Perhaps WSC recognizes this, but they choose to push the genetic agenda because they aren't optimistic that overharvest arguments will be effective in their cause... or perhaps that's naive.

I know nothing of Kurt Beardslee, but at least some of the WSC folks are people whom I believe are genuinely dedicated to the recovery of wild steelhead, and I don't want to believe they are only doing this to make a living off lawsuit settlements and nostalgic documentaries (though I hope they keep those coming; I am a sucker for fish films).

Just to clarify, we are talking here about the letter from WFC- Wild Fish Conservancy, not WSC- Wild Salmon Center.

Two different organizations

Come on man! This isn't about coastal streams. This is about Puget Sound Chambers Creek winter steelhead programs. This is about costs to benefits of these programs. I don’t know of anyone who thinks there isn’t a “cost” to wild steelhead from Chambers Creek winter steelhead programs but is that negative influence significant enough to outweigh the benefits??? The freaks at WFC continue to pick at the low hanging fruit of wild steelhead recovery cuz they know they can’t change/improve any of the really significant issues.

The other way that nature provided nutrients for otherwise sterile streams "was" an over abundance an salmon carcasses.

The letter is about Puget Sound streams, and those streams have even less in common with the Umpqua as the Queets does...and the Queets has almost nothing in common with the Umpqua, either.

If anyone, on either side of the debate, starts citing information about the Umpqua you should tune out and suggest that everyone break for lunch.

It is worse than irrelevant...it is purposely misleading.

Fish on...

Todd

No, I am referring to anyone who ever refers to the Umpqua River, for any reason whatsoever, when comparing Puget Sound streams, or coastal Washington streams...unless the reason they are referring to the Umpqua is to point out that it is stupid to compare it to Puget Sound or Washington coastal streams.

This goes for the WFC crowd who compare it to the Skagit and say the Skagit should have fish just like it, and it goes to the anti-WFC crowd who compare it to any other stream and say that if the hatchery program there doesn't bother the steelhead then neither does any other anywhere else, or that the Queets would be just like the Umpqua if we didn't have gillnetting.

Fish on...

Todd

Oops on the acronym snafu. I was referring yo the WFC. While I agree that most comparisons between the Umpqua and any Washington stream are misguided, I stand by my assertion that the biggest threat hatchery fish pose to wild fish in any stream is the overharvest of wild fish in fisheries targeting the hatchery fish. The same open ocean fisheries affect every population, regardless of any subsequent fisheries that occur in-river. Gillnetting is just one more strike against already overfished populations.

Man is screwing up the resource and will continue to do so.
Us being put on this small rock is a cruel experiment.
It is just a matter of time.

In the letter the authors (WFC?) are claiming that the Chambers Creek hatchery steelhead are a avoidable threat to Puget Sound wild winter steelhead. While I probably have it all wrong but isn't the implication from concern with that ending the planting of Chambers Creek hatchery steelhead the status of the wild winters in Puget Sound would improve?

NMFS Technical Recovery Team (TRT) in examining the wild steelhead populations of Puget Sound determined there were 32 what they called demographical independent populations (DIPs). Of those 32 DIPs 27 are winter populations. With the ending of the Chambers Creek program on the Skagit only 6 are currently being planted with Chambers Creek steelhead.

Of the 21 DIPs that are not being planted with Chambers Creek 9 have not been planted for at least 3 steelhead generations and another 10 have been planted for at least 1 steelhead generation. To my knowledge none of those populations have shown any measureable increase in wild steelhead numbers since the ending of the release of the hatchery fish.

Of further interest 1/2 of those DIPs do not have winter recreational seasons. Across the Puget Sound region many of the DIPs of neither recreational or tribal gill net fisheries during the winter. For those streams that are open to fishing (targeting hatchery steelhead or other species) during the winter 'the aggregate combined effect (total impacts associated with fishing) of all fisheries (yes that includes tribal take) in recent years has average about 4% .

For at least Puget Sound wild winter steelhead significant reductions of hatchery /wild interactions and fishing impacts have not resulted in any measureable improvements in the status of the wild steelhead. Could it be that if folks are really concern about recovery of PS wild steelhead that it is time to at factors other than hatchery and/or harvest?

Curt

Unfortunately you can cut hatchery production and harvest pressures with the stroke of a pen.

The actual work to repair steelhead streams and steelhead runs will be very expensive, hard, and take a long time...and it seems that there is no political will to do any of it.

Fish on...

Todd

Thread number 1000 where we all argue about what needs to be fixed.

It's tough to look in a mirror. Zits are not so cool.

Dang bunch of bummed out dudes at cascade river the other day. I freely admit I don't know [Bleeeeep!] about this, but why not catch some wild, "native' fish in the Skagit and start using them at the hatchery once all those chambers creek fish are gone? Maybe in a somewhat limited manner so as the fry in the estuary don't out compete the wild fish that spawn au natural?

HOLY LOGIC BATMAN!!!

And without netting you are going to tell me the Queets would not return to it's glory, or the Skagit would not return to it's glory. Or what about the Snohomish system. What are they now compared to pre-Boldt case decision. Maybe 10% of what they where then. Come on Man. The Queets reference was to show that the problem is not roads, sewers, logging, It was to show that both have fishermen, but one has no netting, and this is true to PS systems as well, Boldt swung the Ax, and you will do nothing to recover the runs, unless you look toward the Mighty Elwa, and it's remarkable recovery, Hmmmmmm but no nets. How is the nisqually doing today with lower net pressure, I hear it is doing much better.
What was the escapement on the Skagit pre-Boldt compared to today. Nuf said.

Broodstock supplementation, reduced netting. With make for a better world, you are not going to much of an impact on habitat, unless we thin the human herd, and it's increasing last i checked..... Time to go fishing

"They managed them till they were gone"

My dad...

I suggest we stop killing steelhead. All of us.

"They managed them till they were gone"

My dad...

I suggest we stop killing steelhead. All of us.

Don't net them, don't handle them. Don't hold them out of the water, don't sell them at whole foods.

And still trying to harvest them to recovery. J F C !

eyeFISH -
Remember we are talking Puget Sound steelhead here. Not sure that your statement of "...still trying to harvest them to recovery" is either accurate or appropriate.

At the time of the ESA listing NMFS in their listing document determined that in the decade prior to listing harvest (fishing relate mortalities) was not limiting. Since the listing as I pointed out earlier in this thread 1/2 of the winter populations (DIPs) have no winter fishing seasons. In the other basins the total fishing impacts (mostly incidental while targeting other species or hatchery steelhead) has average approximate 4% since the listing.

Further the region's native wild summer populations are doing at least as poorly as the winters in spite of being managed under wild release regulations for recreational seasons with no directed tribal fishing. In addition those populations (South Fork Nooksack Deer Creek, North Fork Skykomish, and Tolt) have not been planted with hatchery fish for an extended time; in some cases never.

Curt