Apparently it hasn’t been done but why haven’t all hatcheries converted to native stock? Not only that but once a native stock is established in a watershed the clipped fish should be thrown back while anglers bring in unclipped fish to the hatchery to keep genetics different. Some kind of cap could be applied to see if runs grow. Did the Snyder creek program use clipped or unclipped fish? Also maybe try spawning the fish as they come in rather than all at once so the timings are different? Just some questions/thoughts I have.

Native fish programs have been tried in various places. There are a variety of problems.

Getting fish to yearling smolt, which is the most economical, requires rapid growth which in the hatchery generally means warmer water, warmer incubation and so on. All things that select for maladaptations in the wild.

Wild steelhead do smolt as age-1 but this is in high productivity situations. Also, age-1 smolts (whether hatchery or wild) will return earlier in the year than age-2. So there will be a temporal separation on returns.

Although winter steelhead arrive at the stream more mature than summers, they still need to mature. In the streams I worked on, the wild fish spawned January-June but most was in April and May. Spawn time has been shown to be an inherited characteristic too.

Certainly the use of local stocks is better than an imported stock if the goal is to minimize genetic damage. But, the accumulated evidence is that any time in a hatchery produces steelhead that are not as successful spawning in the wild. Steelhead are apparently very sensitive to the myriad of differences between a hatchery environment and the wild environment.

In my opinion, based on what I have seen over the years, if we want to have hatchery steelhead programs we should do them in systems where the wild fish are written off due to dams, habitat degradation, or short run (like the Lyre). Wild or hatchery but not both in the system.

Why don’t hatcheries convert to native stock? Seems very odd to have fish from one system used as hatchery fish in another system. Maybe that has an affect on non-native stock not spawning successfully?

Hatcheries operate for a variety of reasons. A stock that has been cultured for a while is adapted to being cultured. They will perform better in the hatchery. Given the current levels of wild stocks, you would be mining them to get broodstock, you would have to go through generations of adaptation, and so on.

Starting with local stock would be the best idea, but that horse has left the barn.

A big question to be asked is why do we want to have a hatchery? If the system has reasonably good habitat, why not use what nature gives you? Hatcheries should be used in otherwise unusable systems.

I’m only asking because i’m thinking it’s possible to rebuild stocks while allowing fishing. By using out of basin stock is like using opposing magnets but in basin stocks would be like a magnet on metal. So then you increase the numbers of in basin fish and they will spawn with native fish. The whole point of the hatchery would be to increase numbers of native fish with a side affect of increased catches. If it works why not increase the load as much as possible every few years and see if the actual spawners increase too.

I always wondered the same thing. Although the Chambers stock was nice to have around in PS for early winter opportunities. Many new hatchery Steelhead programs in BC were exclusive in system native stock. Not sure about today. Even with that they seem to be having the same issues we are currently having. I haven't fished it for years but the Vedder R. was one that had really good success with there native stock program, and lots of stout fish to show for it.

BC steelhead are in worse shape than WA. The problem with rebuilding a wild run with hatchery fish is that hatchery fish, even the first generation, are less well-suited to live in the wild. So, you need more of them spawning to equal the wild fish. Say, for argument, 1.5 hatchery to 1 wild. So, the first thing you do is take a productive wild fish out of the run, put it in the hatchery, and make it less productive. Then, they come back. Since they are hatchery fish, we want to kill them. So we end up with less effective fish on the grounds.

I think the one type of situation where hatchery fish could work in recovery is to mass plant for 4 years (cover all broodlines), let them all spawn, and then leave the system alone while Darwin works overtime to week out the bad genes. Doesn't allow for much harvest, which would be the problem.

Society seem sto be demanding two things that are mutually exclusive right now; lots of fish to kill and lots of fish on the grounds.

With the very low marine survival rates for steelhead these days, the only justification for any new steelhead hatchery program would be to keep an imperiled population from going extinct. Producing more fish for recreational angling is a biological and ecological pipe dream at this time. At the rate things are going with marine survival, I won't be surprised to see more recovery programs, like the Hood Canal steelhead recovery efforts, being developed.

The fundamental problem with native wild steelhead broodstock hatchery programs is that they are detrimental, instead of beneficial, to the native wild steelhead population. C'man mentioned the basic issue above. Hatchery steelhead, even one generation removed from the wild, are less effective in reproduction in the natural environment.

Remember, Salmo, that WA legalized Mary-Jane. There is lots of mind-altering stuff in those pipes producing dreams.

Didn't the Snyder Creek hatchery produce positive results? I don't know much about it. I participated in the Satsop Broodstock program, and it seemed to work. Any hatchery project needs to be scrutinized, not just the same old business as usual, which I think WDFW does too much of.

Many years ago (1970's) the late great John Clayton had hatchery salmon practices on the Kalama that brought about terrific spring Chinook survival and return rates.

I suspect that many hatchery programs if they were scrutinized intensely would show dismal results and bring up the question of why are we continuing to do this. Even if the numbers show they are complete duds there will be demand and support for continuing them.

BTW, all the WA lower CR hatcheries were getting gang buster survivals and returns in the late 1970's and 80's.

Tug,

Snyder Creek produced results. However, in 25 years of doing the program, no one did any kind of monitoring that could conclude that those results were any greater than if the wild broodstock had just been left in the river to spawn naturally. IMO, the results were probably greater based on what I know about fish culture and hatchery and wild survival rates. But that is just an opinion. Same with the Satsop wild brood program. No monitoring. So no one can say definitively how productive the results were. We can say that they "seemed" to work because we saw adult returns from the effort. But that does not provide any quantitative evidence that the results are actually a positive benefit.

RE: John Clayton; after Kalama he moved to Marblemount on the Skagit system where he also conducted some innovative fish culture. Culturing spring Chinook there proved quite challenging, but the seed of the program he worked on there now consistently returns hatchery spring Chinook to this day, although the program remains quite small.

Darth,

I fear that if an objective economic audit were performed on the WDFW hatchery system with today's marine survival rates, the recommendation would be to shut down all salmon and steelhead hatchery production and just operate trout hatcheries that are demonstrated to return trout to the creel at a positive ROI. As a biologist I would want to continue hatchery programs for unique stocks in order to keep "something in the bank" in case things turn around in the SAR scene.

One of the problems with most wild steelhead brood stock programs most monitoring is not adequate to evaluate the success of such programs. The best info likely come from dam counts.

During the early years of the Snider Creek wild brood stock program WDFW was still conducting intense creel surveys which allowed the comparison of the contribution to the catch between the Snider Creek fish and the normal hatchery early winters. In that comparison the standard early winter hatchery fish preformed superior to the Snider Creek fish.

A goal of any wild winter brood stock program should be to select brood stock that is representative (run timing, spawn timing, age structure, etc.) of the donor wild population. Both the spawners and resulting smolts should be representative of the wild population. That can be much more difficult that it might appear and successful meeting that performance standard up to the smolt release can be pretty expensive.

The place that such programs might be most reasonably used is a true conservation program to supplement a wild population that is approaching that knife edge of extinction. That said with what is being learned about the interplay between the anadromous and resident life histories in anadromous streams I am becoming more convinced in that situation insuring that robust resident populations are maintained in the river might be a better strategy. That of course would require selective gear rules with total CnR of the trout any time the system is open for any fishing.

Curt

Oooh, look how all the native stocks have rebounded since cutting hatchery production! Looks like someones facts were off 20 years ago when i hollered over and over again what would happen.
Here you are still touting failed policy. Cleaning our house first and cutting hatcheries worked sooo well. Great job guys.
btw, yall sound sooo scientifical and stuff it must be true!

The problem with looking at how well shutting off hatcheries work, is that many people point to the Nisqually and the Puyallup. First thing to note, is that the South sound seems to be a death trap for most smolt. Reducing numbers probably did not help this problem at all. Second is that on the Nisqually, while there are tons of habitat projects going on and the commercials have raped the salmon runs in river. Sure, we could have good hatchery runs of salmon, but unless they are put back in the river it does no good. This likely has reduced the productivity at the same time the habitat was trying to increase it. Lastly, there is the problem of water draw downs.
Talking to a water specialist a few years ago, well levels were dropping for years, indicating a lowering of the water table. This dewatered a lot of small streams and reduced summer flows. They were going up last I heard, but I am not sure that the damage done can easily be fixed, especially with the all the other issues still not solved.

Friend of mine did lots of steelhead aging and management for the Nisqually. Long ago, like the 70s/80s, there were a lot of steelhead smolts that came out of Muck Creek. It was, then, warmer that the mainstream, lots of habitat, and productive. It has now gone intermittent, too warm, and weed-choked. He thinks, and I concur, that the Nisqually lost its most productive trib, and that is one reason for the crash and lack of response. Muck also suffers from excessive groundwater withdrawals.

An interesting aspect of groundwater is that lots of our groundwater is from septic tank recharge. When houses are connected to STPs that groundwater input ceases.

The Muck Creek Basin has a lot of issues. Most of the problem probably does have to do with well water drawn. There are, however, lots of areas that could be utilized to enhance recharge. Unfortunately I know of nothing being done on Muck Creek. It does run through the base, so perhaps something is going on.

The county has lots of resources, but for the most part is myopic in its view. In the Puyallup Basin, flood control and storm water departments are buying up quite a bit of land. This land, however, is just fenced off and left as-is, other than removing some of the structures. Much of it could be utilized for recreational uses, and if they teamed up with groups like duck unlimited, they could create some awesome wetlands and hunting areas for little to no money. . What they seem to do is wait for federal funds, then slowly spend millions doing small sections, leaving all of it closed off.

One tributary, clear creek, was one I fished on as a kid. They have some huge wetland projects going on it the lower section. The problem is, the stream has very little suitable spawning areas. In fact, flood control would come by and dig out the stream every few years when I was a kid, leaving a straight, mud lined ditch. The upper area, where spawning could occur, is blocked off by a private fish hatchery, that diverts most or all of the water for a small section. I have watched lots of fish come up and try to swim up the outflow pipe. In fact, about 40 years ago, at around 12 years old, I hooked into what I believe was a summer steelhead that was well over 40 inches in the hole created by the outflow ( it was the biggest hole on the street. It streaked across the hole and broke me off in about 5 seconds. I also caught the biggest cutthroat I ever saw out of the creek. Of course, now it is 100% off limits.

So now, millions are being spent in the lower areas, but miles of potential spawning habitat are shut off. A good sized, wooded canyon, with tons of woody debris, cascading holes, all shut off. I know of only a small, tiny creek chum utilize and per happens 10 to 30 feet of gravel on the main system. It might have changed recently, but I doubt it.

Some of those lower tributaries were likely overwinter rather than just spawning. Steelhead and coho move around a lot, especially in the fall. I saw a paper that looks at, I think, the Snohomish system and concluded that the diking, leveeing, filling, removal of beaver ponds and such in the lowlands lowered the basin coho smolt protential by 2/3. Probably knocked down steelhead too. And, might as Rivrguy what the Chahalis watershed would look like coho-wise if the lowlands were a complex of beaver ponds, sloughs, and such.

Oddly enough, in the late 70s my wife and I looked into buying a private hatchery in the Much Creek watershed. Might have been the one you know.

What’s a private hatchery? If native fish were used as broodstock and spawned with native fish would the smolts not overcome the weakness attributed to being spawned in a hatchery?