A private hatchery is one that raises fish for profit. A subgroup is the commercial net pens.

The problems (weakness) caused in hatchery fish tend to be genetic and tend to be lethal in the wild. They "overcome" the weakness by dieing. Probably the worst was some Chamber Creek winter steelhead that spawned in the wild and produced no smolts.

The overall problem with taking fish into hatcheries is that many of the changes are genetic; the fish genetically adapt to the hatchery. Unless the hatchery environment is EXACTLY the same as the wild in terms of temperature, flow velocity, available habitats (pool/riffle/run), unless the foods are the same and arrive the same way (in the water column, not all on the surface) and so on the fish will be changed. Some of the changes, which are "learned", can be overcome. The genetic ones tend to kill.

The BEST hatchery on the planet is a natural WILD river.

Can I get an "amen" for Doc?

AMEN!

Amen.

BTW how is it that WDFWx1 hasn't trolled this thread yet?

fb

Following up on C'man's post, no amount of raising fish in a hatchery, regardless of their genetic background, can overcome the weakness associated with hatchery rearing. It might help if you think about it in terms of heritable traits instead of the more mysterious concept of genetics. Just like other animals and organisms, fish inherit a lot of traits from their parents. Two of the most important traits are the instincts to forage for food and to seek cover from predators. When wild fish are spawned and their offspring raised in a hatchery, their instinct of foraging for food becomes "softened" because they don't have to search for food. It just magically falls on the water surface several times a day, every day, without fail. The foraging instinct becomes dulled because it goes unused until the fish are realeased as smolts to migrate to the ocean, so they aren't nearly as good at it as their wild counterparts who reared in the natural stream environment.

The second heritable trait or instinct, seeking cover from predators, is dulled even more than the instinct for foraging because their are no predators in the hatchery pond. This is an incredible instinct, because juvenile fish that have never seen a predator, have no idea what a predator is, somehow through inheritance, know that they better find cover to avoid becoming a meal for a predator.

In the natural environment, a juvenile fish constantly has to balance its use of time. Should I forage? If I don't, I won't grow and will starve. Or should I seek cover to avoid predation? If I do, I can't forage and grow, and if I don't, I get eaten and die. Life is constantly in the balance. In the hatchery, a juvenile fish simply eats when food appears, and doesn't have the slightest idea why it flinches when a bird flies overhead or the hatchery worker walks along the pond. Thinking about it, it's a wonder that hatchery fish retain enough key survival instincts for foraging and avoiding predation to ever survive the trip to the ocean and back.

There are other epi-genetic heritable traits that affect survival rates of wild and hatchery fish, but these two outlined above are the most significant ones that come to mind.

Another very significant genetic impact is with temperature. In cold-blooded animals, the chemical reactions are controlled by temperature and are inherited. As an example, in some fish (char) the muscles work just fine at low temps while in bass they don't. Incubating and rearing salmonids in warmer water selects for the chemicals that work in warm water. They just don't work in cold. That is likely one of the main reasons why Chambers Creek Winters performed so poorly as wild spawners. They had been, for decades, spawned, incubated, and reared in warm water. In the wild, the water was 15-20 degrees colder; they died.

There is another interesting piece about behavior and survival. In looking at the downstream, within stream, survival of smolting fish from acoustic tags the data I saw had similar mortality rates, per mile migrated, for hatchery and wild fish. I ascribed this to the fact that when the fish smolts it changes its behavior, position in the water, and probably even suite of predators going after them. So, there is a learning curve for all of them as they switch.

In some cases, the hatchery fish suffered less loss over the same distance because they were mass planted and overwhelmed the predators. Wild fish dribbled out.

Has the predator situation been addressed by any agency? In the livestock industry, if the losses to predators hits the tipping point, you thin out predators and resume operations, not just keep feeding the coyotes and wolves and wonder why production sucks. Has there been any studies to determine how many smolts are being consumed by predators?

There have been some studies on predation, with mixed results. If the only thing keeping the numbers down, predators might be a place to look. The predators don't have options for food. Humans do. Humans have options on how they develop the land, how the use water, and so on.

And, has been the case with many predator/livestock issues, the operator is required to make operational changes before, as a last resort, predators are removed.

I would be very interested to find out approximately what % of smolts are consumed by predators, I am sure it varies between watersheds, however, it might be one of the most impactful measures to bring more fish back.

I would suspect that most of the mortality suffered by smolts in FW and SW is due to predation. Something eats them. And has eaten them for millennia.

I can offer an observation I have witnessed on a couple of PS rivers and estuaries. Since the mid to late 80's there has been what I've seen as a huge increase in the cormorant population. Same down on the lower Columbia. They are smart. Every spring they stage at strategic locations set up for the outward migration of smolts. For some reason these locations on the Puyallup and Green are where large cables crossings are located. By the hundreds they come. On the Columbia it's thousands. They are very efficient diving hunters eating a dozen 4-10 inch, or larger fish daily. If you do the math it is evident there impact. The other huge proven impact are seals. One thing is for sure back in the 70's and early 80's less were around. I've often wondered why more study has not been done of the impact here in PS. They have been identified, hazed, trapped and killed on the Columbia for the impact there. One PS Steelhead study on migration had smolt implanted transmitters to see where they were going. Funny thing was very few made it to the Straits and another funny thing is some of the transmitters were found on shore amongst cormorant feces. IMO they need to be managed like everything else. That starts with delisting them as endangered. Offer hunting seasons and bounty's to manage the populations and there impact on endangered fish.

Maybe if recreational fishing was important we would manage the fish and habitat so that the wild runs could be large enough to support fisheries. And the rest of the ecosystem.

Absolutely ! That said it has to be a healthy river and ecosystem and as a man once said to me " we are 200 years and 4 million people late " . So in my mind both are correct and that is the issue as it does not appear we as a people have any intention of doing anything past window dressing different. I think sad but true.

Like most of the rivers of the OP?

Like none of the rivers on the OP, not until they have a large and consistent supply of marine derived nutrients.

Fish on...

Todd

Our fisheries are dying the death of a thousand cuts, however, removing predators to resemble a better balance seems like a slam dunk way of making a difference, because there are plenty of other things that we cannot control. How much is it costing tax payers to feed the socialist birds, Todd?

Too much. Those birds eat better than we do.

Fish on...

Todd

Issue a mandate.
Problem solved.