No More Ice Fishin,

The Quinault raise hatchery steelhead from wild brood, then subsequent generations from those returning offspring. They selectively breed for 3-salt, or larger fish, and the fish culture folks are very proud of their program. The thing is, no quantitative measure of the program's success has been shared with the non-tribal community, if any reports even exist. We know the program returns hatchery fish, as do all the other wild broodstock programs that have been done. But none provide any quantitative conclusions comparing the benefits of those programs to just leaving the wild broodstock to spawn naturally in their respective river systems. I think they produce more fish than the natural spawners would, but that is my opinion and not necessarily a fact.

Returning adults that are not caught do migrate up the river and spawn, as Todd mentions. It likely results in a mix of hatchery origin fish spawning with wild fish. The Quinault Tribe performs the spawning surveys, and by policy, the Tribe decided that hatchery and wild fish are the same, so they've made no attempt to distinguish the difference on the spawning grounds.

Most resource managers would want to know the relative benefits and merits, or lack of, of any fish program they run. However, when you use policy decisions in place of science, you decide not to look so you never have to answer those questions.

Bobrr,

It's been a few years since I toured the Lake Quinault hatchery facility, but they were raising both Chinook and steelhead in the lake net pens. They once raised sockeye, but I think that was long ago discontinued. Sockeye are difficult to raise in a hatchery environment due to IHN disease issues.

20 Gage,

That part of the Quinault under WDFW jurisdiction is closed.