Elwha Hatcheries -Feds win in 9th Circuit decision

Park Service, NMFS, and other Fed agencies successfully defend their hatchery authorization decision against WFC et. al. appeal.

http://www.peninsuladailynews.com/news/c...er-in-decision/

I've thought since day one that WFC would have a whole lot harder time winning lawsuits if the states and feds would get their act together and actually do the required assessments and permits.

Sorry... but to quote STRIKEZONE, that decision sux balz.

Here's a PRIME opportunity for wild salmon recovery to occur w/o being f'd up by the "helping hand" of mankind.

Just have the discipline to leave them alone.... that means no hatcheries and no harvest.... until they gain a strong foothold (finhold?) toward becoming a self sustaining population.

Is that really too much to ask?

Politics. People who make their living by overharvesting artificially large populations of fish are heavily interested (and invested) in hatchery production. Without hatcheries, commercial fisheries in Alaska and BC would look a lot different.... Then, of course, we have the local tribes, whose own commercial fisheries (excuse me, that's cultural traditions) would be jeopardized without hatcheries.

Gotta agree with "Doc" leave'em alone they will come back.Good luck,

SZ

I agree that fish shouldn't be planted. Are these broodstock programs or just run of the mill hatchery fish?

Quote “Approximately 95 percent of recent threatened chinook salmon returns are hatchery origin and the program has operated since 1976.” Unquote

Oh the irony of that statement...

Integrated broodstock and it appears that a high percentage will not be fin clipped.

Ok deal. Let's keep it closed and stop planting it. Also lets go to all of your favorite local rivers and stop planting them and close them up. Fair deal right?

What's the logic behind that idea? Should we just make size 10 shoes for everyone to wear?

The logic behind that is simple, most rivers that are open for salmon retention are hatchery fish dominated, with depleted wild stocks. Therefor by everyone else's logic we should shut down all fishing and remove all hatchery fish. Let every river rebound on it's own.

I guess personally I'm just tired of hearing the rah rah rah get rid of the hatchery fish on the Elwha [Bleeeeep!], when three or four posts down on the main page a bunch of harvested hatchery fish are being celebrated.

With the gene bank experiment in its infancy, aren’t we jumping the gun by suggesting adding more rivers without proven results?

The legislation authorizing removal of the Elwha dams happened 25 years ago. The agreements among diverse - or should I say, divided - interest groups are even older. The use of hatchery fish to jump start wild fish recovery and to supplement fish populations for harvest was fundamental to making those agreements. The prevailing opinions about mixing hatchery and natural fish production were different 30 years ago than they are today. I think backpeddling on decades-old agreements is likely to jeopardize future complex agreements.

I'm not disputing the fact that the Elwha represents the near ideal watershed for natural fish population recovery experimentation, but I won't delude myself by denying that it would be an experiment.

Sg

With all due respect Mark, most rivers heavily planted with hatchery fish, at least in my neck of the woods, have extreme fresh water issues with dams or population encroachment and with little hope in sight. The Elwha had its major freshwater habitat obstacles removed. It would be interesting to see if the fish can rebound without hatcheries or is the marine environment too trashed to allow that to happen.

Seems to me the hatchery strategy is the experiment... a century-long experiment.... that has proven to be an epic failure for wild fish conservation.

Time for the experiment to end and just let nature takes its course as it has for centuries before white colonization of the PNW.

Not using hatchery supplementation might have a chance if all the marine mixed stock fisheries would be closed so that the Elwha and other streams with dams removed could recover. But, we will keep killing those fish in the ocean. Take away the hatchery fish and more of the wilds will be taken in the ocean. It's simple math.

When I was involved in the Elwha recovery I tried to suggest that a myriad of methods be tried. Maybe the traditional methods with Chinook as we already had an ongoing program. Leave steelhead, sockeye, and pinks alone and see what natural recovery does. Flood the system with fry/eggs taken from all sorts of neighboring socks of coho (3 years) and chum (4 years) to put in a tone of genes and the let God sort them out. I got moved to another position too after.

Here's a list of just a few great things hatcheries have done for salmon recovery (the initial stated purpose for hatcheries):

* Polluted the wild gene pool, reducing productivity of the remaining native stocks
* Re-established fisheries in areas that SHOULD be closed, due to endangered wild stocks, thereby speeding the demise of those stocks
* Created a massive number of fish, intended for harvest, that mix in with wild fish from stocks that cannot sustain further harvest in the ocean, thereby putting endangered stocks further at risk from open ocean fisheries
* Tribes refuse to recognize any difference between wild and hatchery fish, so when they fish, they catch and kill everything they can, which in some cases has an unsustainable impact on wild fish (in watersheds where we KNOW those wild fish were bound to spawn)
* Created a bunch of fish that "must die," lest they represent a waste of public money. Unfortunately, the most effective means of getting them dead does nothing to prevent making the wild fish in the mix just as dead.

Basically, we're not getting rid of hatcheries, no matter how much better that might be for wild fish. We don't need wild salmon to have salmon fisheries. That's why the powers that be (those making court decisions like this one) don't care about wild fish recovery. All they are concerned with is keeping commercial (and, to a far lesser extent, sport) fishing going. To do that with wild fish would require no small measure of restraint in setting fishing seasons, probably for a lot of years. That represents too many years of lost profit and lost jobs to ever be a possibility in the current political environment.

To add to FleaFlickr2's comment, wild fish, even if restored to "historic" levels could not meet the demand and be sustainable at those levels. We have stark choices IF wild fish are important:

1. Control human population so that salmonid ecosystems are preserved. This includes the oceans.

2. Limit all harvests (directed, incidental, whatever) to what the sustainable population can support. This includes not only the "traditional" salmon fisheries but food-web fisheries, trawling (impacts in AK). Note just how many wild trout are allowed to be killed in the successful wild trout fisheries.

As one of the Lummi managers commented in the papers about 30 years ago, when asked about the status of wild coho in the Nooksack "Wild fish are nice, but the people gotta eat".

Pogo was right, but we won't face that one.

Same outcome after the eruption of Mt St Helens. Perfect situation to understand how wild fish populations recover into former habitats. Scientists pleaded to set aside at least a portion of the area for research and wild fish recovery without hatchery intervention. Policy makers vetoed that idea and broadcast hatchery fish into every possible stream to support restoration of harvest opportunity, even above natural barriers where species never occurred previously. Non native stocks persist above those barriers today, to the detriment of native species.

Couple of things to keep in mind about St Helens and the WDF hatchery there. State Law is if you don't use your water right for its defined use for 5 years, you lose it. Must us it all. The lease for the land had a similar clause; no use you lose.

It would have been better, in my opinion, to have gone with totally natural recovery but that would likely mean the permanent loss of the hatchery if one ever wanted re-open.

Second aspect of recovery is that all native species upstream of a natural barrier were permanently lost, never to be recovered.

It was a more complex decision than just plant the **ck out of the system.

I have not yet read the court decision.....

However, I'm not seeing a huge downside if the issue is confined to the impacts of hatchery smolts fish on wild smolts. When hatchery smolts are released, they move downstream to the ocean very quickly. The potential for interactions with wild fish is minimal. And once they're in the ocean, it's everyfish for itself. Survival of the fittest. In that case, wild fish will have the advantage every time. So I don't see a huge concern.

But what's going to happen when the hatchery adults return? If the resulting harvest includes an exploitation rate that takes large numbers of hatchery adults, the wild fish will go extinct very quickly. That should be obvious. Wild fish cannot take an exploitation rate of 90+ percent, even though hatchery fish can.

As I see it, stocking of hatchery fish is a concern, but by itself it's not huge. The real threat is the potential for high levels of terminal harvest that usually accompany hatchery stocking. Even modest levels of terminal harvest will likely take too many wild adults. Those adults need to be on the spawning grounds. So the real threat with hatchery fish is not the stocking, it's the subsequent harvest.

I agree with Salmo g. who suggests that allowing natural recolonization would be an experiment, but only to the extent that doing so under current conditions is highly uncertain. The reason Elwha River Chinook grew so large 100+ years ago was that they needed to attain a body size large enough to get over the enormous rapids in Elwha Canyon. And 100 years ago Chinook could grow to 70+lbs because ocean harvest was virtually non-existent. Chinook salmon can no longer grow to a large body size because of the time it takes to do so. They'll get caught and bonked before they reach their terminal body size. Nobody throws back a 50lb Chinook in hopes it will grow to 80+ lbs, even though it might. Every 50lb Chinook that gets caught gets bonked.

So, will there be enough large Chinook (hatchery or wild) returning to the Elwha to recolonize the spawning grounds upstream of the Elwha Canyon rapids? That is the uncertainly that hovers over this experimental restoration project.

There has been a fishing moratorium (sport and commercial fisheries) on the Elwha River and its tributaries since 2011. That moratorium has just been extended until June 1, 2019.

Elwha Fishing Closure

Thx!

But, especially the Chinook and coho are still taken on the outside. Those fisheries do more damage than a terminal fishery on adults would.

Good! As Carcassman points out, some will still get intercepted on the outside. But protecting the lucky ones that successfully run the gauntlet is the right thing to do. If it were up to me, I'd extend a VERY large no-go zone for ALL on the outside to protect staging fish and mandate no hatchery fish EVER. Shut er' down completely for at least 10 years. It's a once in a lifetime opportunity to further study and observe what is working and what is not. Don't waste it. Plant a crap ton of fish on the Cowlitz and and let the Elwha go...IMO.

The marine mixed stock fisheries are what will **ck-up Chinook recovery. To get recovery, the fish need to grow to adult size and age. Probably the same with coho, to a lesser extent. They need to grow instead of being sucked up in the July-August fishery as aggressively gorging fish. As long as we lop off the older fish we won't get much for recovery even with closing the terminal areas.

Older, more fecund hens are a HUGE part of the productivity equation. If you can't recruit more 4-ocean hens to adulthood, it's pretty much a lost cause.



As ol' Vedder used to say.... no huevos, no pollo!

This is spot-on correct for Chinook. Coho have an obligate three-year life cycle, so they only have about 18-20 months to reach their terminal size before they return to spawn. So ocean fishing for coho reduces overall abundance, but not size-at-maturity.

Chinook can continue to grow in the ocean until they reach a very large body size (e.g., see the above pic from FishDoc). But they can only do that if they can escape the high seas fishing. So ocean fishing for Chinook reduces the size-at-maturity and the abundance of the adults, as we've discussed at length on this BB in the past. So, yes recovery depends greatly on reducing exploitation in the open ocean. If fishing takes place in saltwater, it should occur near the river of origin of the adult salmon.

By the way, the Tribes have been telling us this for about 100 years.....

Coho are actually significantly more plastic than recently thought. When there is enough escapement, you get age-0 smolts. There are fry, fingerlings that rear in the estuary, and fall smolts. At least the fall smolts return either 12 months later (2 year old) and smaller than average or 24 moths later as much bigger age-3's. There are also 2 year old smolts; these can be quite large. Finally, in AK at least, there are smolts that return to freshwater in the fall once or twice, overwinter, and then go to the ocean. These would be 4 and 5 year old adults and probably fairly large.

The idiocy of marine mixed stock fisheries has been known and ignored for quite a long time. It was certainly part of the first exposure I had to salmon management in college.

Interesting post, CM.... plasticity and all.

But would you not agree that all adult coho share one similarity in life history in that they all return after only one winter in the salt?

Coho are gluttonous eating machines. Imagine if there were bonafide 2-salt coho (those spending a second winter at sea) The way they eat, a number of them would routinely hit 30-35 pounds!

Did you check your messages?

No Doc. The age-0 smolts that return in 12 months are not jacks but fully mature adults of both sexes. And, there are 2-salt coho from the traditional yearling smolts.

Look at the old records for coho; state records and such. I think there were some above 30. Consider, though, which coho is most likely to be taken in a summer troll or sport fishery. It is the mos aggressive, gluttonous fish. The one more likely to be bigger as he is first in line to eat.

I'd guess for the most part that 2-salt life history is exceedingly uncommon and for practical purposes has essentially been snuffed from the gene pool... inconsequential to the overall spawning escapement.

They are probably inconsequential (2-salt adults from yearling smolts) but they are a pretty significant fraction of the fall smolt return. But, to get fall smolts you likely need to heavily seed the stream; way above MSY when managing only for spring yearling smolts.

Interesting conversation. Sooooo Coho are easy to work with as to re-population even if heavily influenced by outside factors. Simple fact is if the issue is not the total destruction of habitat it is a three or four cycles and minus harvest Coho will sort out genetically in rather short order. Chinook are different but it is around four or five cycles but then the marine harvest is the primary driver. Hell the Elwa can bounce back but NOT with the monster Chinook of the past as the AK & BC harvest will weed out the 5 & 6 year olds, In fact from what I have seen in my time is the simple fact that the drastic shrinking of size is directly related to the removal of the 5 & 6 year olds from the gene pool by the marine fisheries. Chum are do about the same as Chinook but minus the ocean harvest they can be turned around fast.

So folks like it are not our problems have always revolved around harvest clear back to when TR was president.Sure habitat impacts have reduced stream productivity ( hugely in places ) which comes hand & hand with human activities but it is the failure to recognize this and reduce harvest to the level a stream can support is what drives the down spiral. Want to see salmon start to stabilize? Get rid of MSY and drastically reduce marine intercepts of ALL kinds on Chinook for at least 4 to 5 cycles. Anything else is window dressing and will not work which is why salmonids are at the place they are.

Here's the problem about Elwha Chinook and it is, to my mind, the best example of the problems of "simple" restoration by setting only numerical goals. The Elwha Chinook were not as huge as they were (like Kenai) so anglers could catch huge fish. They were big because THAT was necessary for the long-term survival. They needed to be big to navigate the flows, to dig redds deep enough, to move the riverbed, and so on.

Sure, we can have wild Chinook in the Elwha but unless we restore the Hawgs we will get a minor population nibbling at the edges of the habitat. Same with all the other species. We need the coho to smolt as fry, estuary fry, fall smolts, spring smolts, lake smolts, and nomads in order to exploit the ecosystem. We need the repeat-spawning steelhead as well as the age 1-5 smolts.

They all existed for a reason, and that was to optimize population survival. Or, we can choose what is convenient and have fragile museum populations.

I would also add that, originally, Chinook were big river fish. Spawned in big mainstems. That was, I believe, "why" they were big. In our relentless effort to kill as many as quickly as possible what we have created is a piscivorous chum. At 20 pounds an adult can spawn in much smaller water.

Maybe that is how we will "save" Chinook. make them 10-20 pound creek fish. Since we want to use the big rivers for things other than salmon, maybe that is the route to go.

Donald Trump is going to destroy the Ninth Circuit Court. I wonder if this will have an effect on this decision.

Purely out of curiosity, Carcassman, have you ever fished the Elwha?

Yes, a number of times.

As an example of Elwha Chinook:

Looking at the charts in the Puget Sound Chinook Harvest Management Plan, the biggest chunk of Elwha Chinook goes to AK/BC, then SUS leaving zero local Elwha fishery.

In the last 2 decades the Elwha has made escapement goal of 2900 Chinook 2 times, but look who keeps on fishing.

In our haste to beat up on the Tribes we ignore the real killers.

you mean us? humans?

arent the tribes humans too tho? and dont they sell their fish for profit? were as sport fishers basically "live like they were accustomed to" and feed their families with their catch?

My point was that folks are quick to blame all salmon ills on gill netting in rivers while the most damage done to the long-term stock composition, age, and size now occurs in the marine mixed stock fisheries. The tribal fisheries are an easy target because they are obvious.

Most managers that I have interacted with agree that a well regulated and accounted terminal fishery on adult fish is the biologically best way to manage. May not be the most popular, many of the fish are not chromers, and the often don't bite as aggressively but it is the best way to manage for the fish.

And the Tribes did a lot of trading of fish for other needs.