Are rainbow trout and steelhead the same?

I was just reading through that other thread with the debate over whether rainbow trout and steelhead are the same and thought some of you might be interested in this article. It seems others are having this same debate. How this question is answered could possibly result in removing protection from some steelhead. Here is a link to the article.

http://www.registerguard.com/news/2003/01/05/16e.cr.speciesfish.0105.html

The way this works for O. mykiss is that they have different trajectories in order to optimize survival, and that some of these trajectories include resident forms. What this means is that individual offspring from steelhead can either residualize (sspend their entire lives in freshwater), migrate to sea in the spring at either one or two years old, and return again that winter or up to 4 winters later. This allows any one fish lots of options - for example, if El Nino kills all the anadromous fish - as it may be doing this year - resident fish survive better even though they produce fewer eggs and their offspring are much smaller. In good ocean years the anadromous fish predominate. In years when the river dries up, as it did in many places this past year, the resident fish take it in the shorts, while the anadromous fish have it made. The drought also killed off many juveniles, so in order for that one year class to be repopulated, anadromous fish return after spending anywhere from 1 to 4 years at sea, seeding the area with offspring. All these trajectories add up to maximum survival - take out any one and the chances of recovering after perverse natural events decreases.

So, if "property rights advocates" think that since there are lots of "trout" in the stream at the moment it's ok to delist anadromous steelhead, they better think again, because that's not what science shows. More likely, in order to recover unhealthy steelhead populations, the trout need to be ESA listed along with the steelhead.

By the way, I hate newspaper articles like this one, where the whole gist of the story is to make controversy by pitting people against each other

Spawnout described it well. Rainbow trout and steelhead trout are the same species. Each one can produce the other as well as their own, altho the tendency is to produce more of their own. I also think Spawnout is right that if the steelhead are endangered, the rainbow in the same streams should also be listed, as their fates are connected. And like Spawnout, I don't much care for the media sensationalism about such a conflict. They could inform the public and still be reporting the news instead of looking for the flame to fan in a story.

A citizen democracy requires an informed citizenry.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

According to WDFW a steelhead is a rainbow trout over 20". WDFW has made that distinction.

Size does matter, in this case.

I didn't know that rainbow trout could produce steelhead, that's interesting. I read the article again and see what you mean about being somewhat inflammatory. Unfortunately, articles on subjects like this are few and far between. I never saw anything about Alsea Valley vs NMFS until Judge Hogan issued his ruling. Maybe I'm not looking in the right places, but with today's media it's hard to find well written unbiased articles to keep up on all that's happening. All I can do is take what's out there and try to cut through the crap. At least the author of this article lays out what is being reviewed and the view of the two opposing sides. Anyway I didn't know this debate about rainbow trout and steelhead was going on until I saw this article a few days ago and thought it was quite a coincidence the same subject came up on this board shortly after. My posting of this article was not to fan flames, just share information.

I think the 20 inch thing is a management device. Any rainbow over 20 inches caught in a river likely got that big from going to sea so is likely an anadromous steelhead. Hence, you have to mark it on your card and you have a 30 fish yearly limit. Under 20 inches and its managed as a rainbow trout where the limit is two a day (in rivers), no yearly limit, different seasonal restrictions.

As Spawnout points out, resident rainbows provide another life history strategy to do battle with the variety of environmental conditions (and humans) that continually try to do it in. To separate the two for the expressed purpose of weakening protection is not only unscientific, but borders the unconscionable. You have a stock in such straits as to be listed under ESA, so you separate out a life history strategy that maximizes genetic variability so that it can recover, so that you can delist it. Makes so much sense.