At Rivrguy's suggestion here's a thread on the currently hot issue of spending bundles of money for no fish.

Early in my career I spent a lot of time on some smaller streams that had all sorts of barriers. Most were somewhat intermittent for adult salmon but a bigger problem for juveniles and impossible for fish like sculpins. I found out, when I asked, that while the Hydraulics Code said "protect fish life" it meant salmon; sculpins were worthless.

And, WDFW does have (or should have) data on what happens when barriers are fixed. The culvert I mentioned on 101 had a smolt trap just upstream; just looking at numbers out versus known spawners above (the creek's entire anadromous zone was surveyed) would tell a lot. And having eliminated the exotics; that can be evaluated too.

Even more informative was a creek near PA. On Old Olympic Highway, which is north of 101, there was a fish ladder at a road crossing that was an intermittent barrier to adult coho. The creek originated in, and was Salmond accessible, into ONP. Anyway, they not only removed the ladder but also the dam that the roadbed made. That meant that all the accumulated sediment had to move down. There already were steelhead surveys up close to the Park and a smolt trap at the mouth. Knowledge should be power.

3/25/2024

I live in Central Park, retired, so I have time to spend "just watching" to see if there was any movement of fish.

There is a project just East of Montesano, still on going, where a fairly good size creek flows South to the Chehalis River. On the creek below the Hiway, there was a "massive culvert" placed in the creek and a new bridge over the culvert. This culvert and bridge is on a road with only a few house's. So what I did, during peak Coho and Chum times.....I'd park on top of the bridge, IPhone camera ready, drink coffee and just watch, tried to time my watching during incoming tide in the Chehalis. NEVER saw a fish....timing was late October - early December, when water color allowed me to see.

I remember thinking that with all those taxpayer funds being spent, why not a "battery powered sonar" to act as the fish movement counter????? Its only about 3-4 miles from Region 6.

If they looked, and got numbers, the next question would be management. The fish can't go upstream if they don't actually get there.

Back in the day, it seemed every stream got planted. Not today.
I’m no bio, so say culverts are replaced and the habit is deemed viable, what is the likelihood that say planting hatchery coho and chums could reseed some of these streams?
SF

We bought a small piece of heaven here in the Green River Valley with Habitat restoration and preservation of the remaining wild Coho, Chum, Pink, and Cutthroat in this creek as a prime motivator for the location, our home, and retirement . We posted big $ bonds held by king county’s epa bank. We followed all requirements set forth by king county’s epa, CCA, CSA, and WDFW .

We restored and protected over 700 feet of creek with habitat planting , creek woody debris, gravel , pooling and riffle work. Monitored for 10 years before my bond was satisfied. Coho rebounded, Chums filled the creek, with Cutty and Rainbow trout everywhere.

Then the king co. DNR, EPA, and WDFW responded to a mudslide upstream of our place over a year ago and had to re route the creek around their upstream property. They purchased the property years ago and managed it as a ponding area upstream in the creek. They moved the creek from its original Stream bed to actually flow into the pond, and then relying on the creek to keep the pond full with excess water flowing out of the creek and back into the stream bed. No permits needed, as they declared a possible roadway blockage if the creek flooded, so they moved it, and left it as it was.

However, they forgot that the pond nearly drys out every summer, and combined with beavers moving into the pond they enabled, and blocked the outflow to the point that the entire run of the creek dried out killing the entire run or Wild Coho, Chum, Pink, and all local Cutthroat and Rainbow trout.

They have been trying figure out a new fix, but need the local indigenous tribe to buy in , which they are not, and the other state epa-ish entities now responsible for the health of this creek which now have no money or people to do anything to fix the mess. So the creek Is dead, the fish, and all supporting wildlife are dead, and we lost everything we put into this habitat restoration and the wild fish it produced

Coho averaged nearly 200 wild returns, with Chum at 220, and pinks everywhere on odd years. What a wasted effort...

3/25/2024



Lots of wasted effort by lots of volunteers on many projects over the years.

When I retired in 1997, I did brood stocking for winter run Steelhead on the Satsop River.....My money, my time, my effort, lots of wild steelhead "tubed up", some big fish.....

Project seemed to be doing good, returns were showing, OPPS, Cowlitz went to xhit, guess who showed up with boat loads of "pay to kill fishers", program ended.

Right now, on the Wynoochee River, 70 Native/Wild have been removed from the trap, hauled about the Dam, no way to get out.......so between TCL and WDFW, they are killing wild steelhead every year......grrrrrrr

It really seems that actual recovery is not a goal of the Co-Managers. There must be way bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

Tribes not wanting recovery? I think the big fish frying is bailout $$ for the loss. The almighty dollar always screws things up.

The tribes want fish. But, a fish is a fish and hatchery fish certainly feed more people than a wild run so depressed it can't be fished. A few decades back one tribal manger noted (in regards to a hatchery managed coho run) "Wild fish are nice but the people gotta eat." Even Boldt recognized that the treaty right was for dead fish in the boat; at some point the state will need to pay for it.

And, money is the big thing. At some point I suspect there will be a huge payout for the destruction of the runs.

Makes one wonder how far the billions we're spending on culvert replacements that are being set up to fail at producing more fish, plus what it cost to fight the lawsuit, might have gone toward that payout.

Now, we'll spend that money, get marginal results (if any), and end up with a multi-billion dollar payout on top of it.

Curtailing open ocean harvest, even modestly, would instantly provide more fish for the Tribes. That's the only thing that will get results at this stage of the game. It would also leave more fish to seed the habitat we're trying to recover, at which point our current "investment" might make a difference. Short of that, the citizens of WA can only look forward to being sued into oblivion.

Unfortunately, I agree. Success at recovery requires too many changes by too much money. Open open fisheries of all kinds, uncontrolled population growth, development, too much disconnect with the land (food comes from grocery stores).

I'll ask the question again. If the streams where culverts were replaced have good habitat, is there a reason they can't be planted to re-seed them?
The creek below my place has terrible habitat. They plant it every year with chum fry. They don't successfully spawn, but if I recall correct they got over 1K adults back last year as well as some coho which I believe are strays.
If it had good habitat, I think those chums and coho could reproduce.
Everything used to get planted back in the day. Why not today? Is it a lack of funding or just a lack of desire?
SF

If you thought uncontrolled population growth was an issue to deal with during all the purported “save our salmon” recovery $$ and effort of the last 30 years, just add the new 5 to 10 million hungry mouths that are streaming across the borders as we type...

In response to Stonefish, you need to quit killing them in the ocean to get them to come back. WDF used to plant out coho fry to backfill for over harvest of the wild stocks. It added some fish to the fishery.

Fry planting was stopped for a number of reasons. Hatchery'wild interactions being one. Money probably being another.

At the end of the day, the hatchery supported salmon runs are much easier to manage.

Thanks for the reply.
I guess my point is, if there are no wild fish filling the void in the habitat above where the culvert was replaced, why not plant it provided it is suitable habitat? Hatchery fish can't interact with non existent wild fish. I know that is a simplistic approach, but it might yield some results for the money being thrown at replacing the culverts.
Money isn't the problem in my opinion. This state has plenty of it and pisses away a lot of it. It just a matter of how they spend it and fish just seem to be low in priority. Maybe that will change if they continue to get thumped by the tribes in lawsuits.
SF

Stonefish, to follow upon C'man's post, stocking coho fry in unseeded or under seeded creeks is cheap and does add to overall production. However, that practice is not as productive as creeks adequately seeded by natural wild coho. I don't know but think the practice was largely discontinued because WDFW wants to keep hatchery and natural production separate. And the production component of fry stocking is almost impossible to accurately monitor and evaluate.

Stocking chum fry is mainly a feel good exercise. If the habitat is of good enough quality, a natural chum run can be created. South sound chum salmon streams were nearly wiped out back during intensive over-harvest in Area 9. Management changed and small scale hatchery operations were developed on several of the affected creeks. It was wildly successful, and these S. sound streams are now among the most productive producers of wild chum salmon in all of Puget Sound. Habitat quality matters. Along with intelligent harvest management.

Have you seen any of that "intelligent harvest management" recently????

And hatchery fish will interact with the wild fish in the fishery.

In my view, selective harvest of hatchery fish should occur only when the vast majority of the encounters are hatchery fish. As the fraction of hatchery fish goes down, wild fish encounters and mortality rise. It seems criminal to me to have a "selective" fishery when the majority of the encounters are wild fish. But that's just me.

Sg,
Thanks for the reply.
SF

Read an interesting news article in the Seattle Times. It was about the future of SRKWs. This was a report on a scientific paper that modeled the future. The conclusion was essentially extinction unless we make major, and painful, changes.

The paper covered lots of issues but concluded that we really don't have the will to save them. As an example, it has been shown that the reduction in marine noise in the Salish Sea has had a beneficial effect. At the same time, we are planning to bring in significantly more ships to support international trade and energy needs.

We haven't actually accomplished anything that gets them more food. And so on. As a society, we talk a good line but don't produce.

Our problem is our own government! Us! Years ago, when we knew about losing salmon habitat (dams, roads, etc.) we were promised to always have salmon by building hatcheries. Now to save salmon (so called wild ones) we can't harvest the fish that we have been promised. But trying to protect and isolate the wild ones, we quit letting hatchery strain fish (which are likely the same genetics as almost every other salmon in Puget Sound) we have further ruined the habitat for natural spawners by limiting nutrification. Furthermore, if I decided to kill an unmarked king salmon I stand the chance of being arrested, perhaps jailed, and maybe even the loss of my fishing privileges and seizure of my boat. Meanwhile, an Alaska troller from our own state can kill our protected salmon in Alaska, sell it, and ship it back to our state for someone to buy for dinner!

( Hard to keep the orcas fed without increasing hatchery production) Impossible to increase wild fish with extremely limited habitat. It aint gonna work. We have been failing miserably for forty years, even though we have the answers.