Elwha Dams and Steelhead Genetics

Looks like the steelhead's ability to re-establish historical genetics is not only resilient, but rapid!

https://wildsteelheaders.org/science-fri...he-elwha-river/

Fish on...

Todd

Not sure about re establish would be a term I would use. Whatever the environmental and harvest factors are will through natural selection determine genetics. In this case the areas blocked are mostly protected so things should go the way the article says. In the case of the Chinook not so much as to the return of the huge size. These were 5 / 6 / 7 year fish that are brutalized in the ocean harvest. Dams gone great step forward but it will be many years before we see what the Chinook run will evolve to. Steelhead do not get the marine destruction that other spieices do thank god but they are very vulnerable in the fresh water. What works on the Elwha ( with the watershed protected by the park ) exist in few places in the state.

Remember, too, that O. mykiss is optionally anadromous. In southern California they appear to have gone decades to even centuries of drought where they were wholly resident. When wet times returned, they became anadromous again The Elwha is about a century of dams, but even then the migratory/big water fish had the lakes and some below-dam anadromy.

As Rivrguy says, the big Chinook may come back only after we quit killing them in the ocean and let them grow to older ages. It is my understanding that there are still a minuscule few of the biog old fish left. Stop killing them, let them grow up, and let them have food in the ocean.

Good luck on the Chinook...genetics, maybe, but expression of 5+ year olds? Not a winning strategy any more, I'm afraid.

Steelhead...as noted, already happening.

Fish on...

Todd

The problem is that the Elwha were that big because that was what was needed for success in the river. No big fish, no successful recovery.

They definitely won't be able to use the same spawning areas as the big boys did.

Fish on...

Todd

Such a cool opportunity to learn about nature's healing powers.

I'm interested to see if a sockeye run develops going into Lake Sutherland through Indian Creek.

Don't know if it is still there but WDG had a screen structure in place at the outlet to Sutherland that blocked all up/down migration. Hopefully, it has been moved.

CM, I think they removed that screen, and changed the fishing regulations on the lake to allow less and only smaller kokanee be retained...thought being that the native run of sockeye would be able to re-establish.

Indian Creek, I believe?

Fish on...

Todd

Indian creek is correct.

It’s my understanding that a weir was supposed to be placed across the river to separate hatchery from wild fish and to keep hatchery fish out of the upper river. I’ve read several places that it isn’t happening, which was one of the agreed upon terms for putting in the new hatchery.
Can any confirm that the weir is or isn’t being used?
SF

A problem is that we know that kokanee can and will smolt and subsequent return as adult anadromous sockeye. If they want a sockeye run, stop putting kokanee in the lake. If they are there and naturally spawning, just leave them alone and let nature sort it out.

CM, I'm pretty sure the entire recovery plan for Elwha sockeye is to allow the resumption of anadromy by the existing lacustrine sockeye salmon from Lake Sutherlund. I do not believe there is any hatchery involvement in this particular species recovery plan.

But are kokanee planted in the lake for sport fishing?

Let me be more specific. I believe that there are no hatchery releases of Kokanee in Lake Sutherland, period.

Me, too.

I suspect Stonefish was mentioning that the main river should have had a weir installed to keep any stray hatchery fish from getting up to the spawning grounds on the Elwha proper.

Fish on...

Todd

Correct, I was referring to the weir or lack of on the main river, not Indian Creek.
SF

I just looked at WDFW's trout and kokanee palm and species pages. Sutherland is still pointed out as a kokanee lake. A bio I know who worked in the Skagit watershed noted that genetic studies showed the "kokanee" taken in Baker were anadromous sockeye.

Even if they are no longer stocking kokanee, if they want to restore sockeye in Sutherland stop fishing for O. nerka.

I think that the regs have an 18" maximum "kokanee" size limit intended to protect adult sockeye...but I agree, if re-establishing anadromous sockeye in the lake is the intent, then a kokanee fishery at this point is counter-productive.

Makes as much sense as killing wild "rainbow trout" in steelhead streams.

Fish on...

Todd

Pretty healthy population of those kokes - if they go anadromous should be a decent little jump start to a sockeye run. As much as I'd hate to give up fishing them out of my kayak when staying at the cabin, I'd trade that in to see sockeye coming up Indian creek any day.

An interesting aspect of the recovery will be if sockeye don't do well but the kokanee do. The lake shows the potential to grow smolts, but then the don't survive.

We are seeing the same sort of thing in the Cedar, and maybe other streams, with steelhead. Mykiss, like nerka, appear to be optionally anadromous in response to environmental conditions. If conditions in the ocean are "bad" the successful spawners are those that stay home. Some always go down to the sea, but until conditions improve their significant fecundity advantage is lost.

How will the managers respond when nature tells them that resident is the choice?

My contact advised that the screen at the Sutherland outlet is removed, but the concrete structure is still there. He said coho adults have been seen spawning in Falls Creek, a tributary to Lake Sutherland and that coho coho juveniles have been seen in the Lake. Maybe the sockeye/kokanee will start on their own.

The thing I find fascinating about fish genetics is how rapidly they change in reaction to environmental and harvest changes. Take Coho if you have a stream impacted by hatchery straying and other human activities and you stop human influence it takes only about three generations ( nine years ) for the genetic traits that environmental conditions dictate for Coho ( or salmon in general ) to evolve or be on their way so to speak. Steelhead have so many different variables in their life cycle from one place to another that it a rather difficult to point to any one thing being the damaging influence. That is the rub here as the answer is all the above which immediately crosses into a huge number of social and economic things that will likely doom many populations. You see it is easy to be and environmentalist when another carries the burden and the areas are rural. When it begins to to restrain or impede urban activities then then Steelhead rapidly become far less important to a vast majority of folks especially our elected officials.

One of the nice things about natural selection is that it works if you give it a chance. Allow only wild-spawned fish to spawn in the wild in the future and you will get stocks adapted to the conditions. If the fish can adapt to the changing conditions. If not, extinction. But the concern about hatchery fish on the grounds is cured two ways. The first is don't put them there on purpose. The second is to overwhelm the few strays with naturally evolved spawners.

Nature is pitiless. If you aren't capable of survival, you die. End of genetic issues.

Okay, now I will commit blasphemy! I think that salmon by some great design, are more adaptive than we know. Nature designed them to stray, to some extent, to replace fish that were eliminated by a catastrophic event. It seems to me, that by allowing large numbers of healthy returning hatchery fish, originally from the same basic stock, would bolster the number of spawners, which is what we need for recovery of "wild" stocks. Isn't that what one aspect of HSRG espoused?

They are resilient Tug but consider that when in the hatchery they are selected for different freshwater traits. Maybe earlier return, they don't select their mates, they may incubate in warmer water, may rear in warmer water, never have to deal with a freshet/flood, and so on. All of these traits are inheritable.

That is why, basically, Chambers Creek steelhead suck in the wild. They were selected for a radically different FW environment. Salmon are not so bad, but the hatchery still is different.

Remember, too, that the stocks did evolve to use strays, but it was likely only a small fraction of the run. If strays make up the majority, then the majority is not well-adapted to the system.

I don't disagree, C-Man. I guess I would suggest that in broodstock type hatchery cases, why can't we let the hatchery returns spawn with the returning "wild" stock?. I think one of the missing links of recovery is not having a good nutrient enhancement program on streams. Too often very few wild fish on the gravel means poor nutrients in the stream, which affects coho, steelhead, cutthroat, etc.

It's a numbers game. Most, and by that I'd say at least 75-80% at least of the spawners have be be wild-born. Some fish with a hatchery background could then safely spawn.

You're right that current management criminally, in my mind, withholds nutrients.

Tug the broodstock issue is a long and well played game but look at the QIN for example they plant numbers that rival the Cowlitz in the salmon river and, while they do get some good averaged size fish back, they don't really fight all that well, even the 25lbers..and the run is still coming back lower as time passes, reinforcing the research showing about lowered survival, fecundity and overall fitness of hatchery fish.
But it still comes down to the ocean numbers. Hatchery fish USED to give us a return rate of 3 to 5% of total planted...nowadays many are struggling to even break 1.5% return from plant count. Throwing more bodies on the pile, and spending a metric S ton to do it won't help the issues and could in fact just make it worse.
Einstein had it totally right in his definition of insanity and yet here we are.

On the swing,

Thanks for your thoughtful post I was a participant on the Satsop broodstock collection project (20?) years ago. It seemed to me to be successful, but I have no idea of the numbers. Many years ago, in the mid 70's, I saw a remarkable rebuilding of the spring chinook run on the Kalama due to a change in hatchery rearing. John Clayton was the genius hatchery manager at Kalama Falls. He floated sheets of plywood on the raceways to give the juveniles a place to escape. Then he didn't let the employees step up to the ponds to feed, but kept them back at a distance so that the hatchery springers wouldn't get trained. Fish were fed at different times. This created a more natural condition, I think, and must have led to a higher survival rate. Over one cycle the run went from a few hundred to several thousand. I've wondered over the years why practices similar to that weren't adopted. It would seem to me that the more we mimic nature the more successful we would be.

Tug, I think research has shown that the more nature is mimicked in hatcheries, the "more fit" the fish are for the wild. I don't see how what happened at Kalama helped in that generation as the hatchery and wild fish were subject to the same conditions once released. That doesn't mean that John didn't produce fish that would do better in the river as fry.

But, at Minter, and at Tokul, when predator netting was installed the in-pond survival of coho and steelhead went way up. It went up so much at Minter that the "rolled the pond" (lost a lot of fish) because they didn't know of the loss of fish. Not only birds, but rats. Sounds to me like Kalama had a much higher release as they lost fish they were unaware of.