Should WDFW be doing something like this statewide?

HENRY MILLER"
The (Salem) Statesman Journal"
SANDY, Ore. (AP) – It just seemed natural, what with the dam disappearing and all.
Because the benefits aren’t worth the costs – economically and environmentally – Portland General Electric is getting rid of Marmot Dam on the Sandy River near Portland in 2007.
“It’s all going to look like that when it’s gone,” said Jim Muck, pointing to a pristine, fern- and tree-lined stretch of the crystalline waters of the Sandy downriver from the dam.
Muck, a fish biologist with the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife’s North Willamette Watershed District office in Clackamas, was standing mid-river on a steel-and wooden bridge that spans the Sandy next to the dam.
There’s just one problem, though: no Marmot dam, no ladder; no ladder, no fish trap.
Muck’s and the department’s answer to the loss of the sorting station: convert the Sandy River Hatchery to only native fish gene stock.
Going native is a work in progress at each of the state’s hatcheries under the Oregon Plan for wild-fish conservation, he said.
“As an agency, we’ve been converting a lot of stocks” to fish just from that river or drainage, Muck said. “We’re probably right in the middle. We have other hatcheries that have already been converted.”
Sandy River Hatchery collects about 1.2 million eggs a year, including about 300,000 spring chinook, 160,000 winter-run steelhead and 700,000 coho salmon.
“The coho have always been an in-basin” native-strain stock, Muck said.
During the run-up to the removal of Marmot Dam, hatchery sorters are keeping native Sandy River fish and removing the remnants of Big Creek and Eagle Creek hatchery strains that remain in the river.
The same applies to spring-run chinook, which had been a Clackamas River genetic stock.
“We do genetic testing, wanding,” Muck said. “We have ways of finding out hatchery from wild fish,” including the required adipose fin-clip on all hatchery fish.
Wanding means running a detector, similar to a hand-held airport metal detector, over the head of the fish to detect if it has a tiny, internal coded-wire tag embedded in its nose.
The switch to native fish for hatchery stocks is a natural evolution for the program, said Ken Bourne, the hatchery manager.
“It’s a lot of work, but in the long run, it’s worthwhile,” he said, peering down into the fish trap at Marmot Dam, where about a half-dozen huge steelhead and coho were finning in the clear, cold water. “I think it’s pretty interesting, pretty exciting.”
By the time the dam is removed in 2007, allowing the fish to migrate unimpeded, almost all of the non-native fish will be removed from the gene pool, Muck said.
So without the ladder and trap, where is the hatchery going to get the fish it needs to grow the future crops?
Anglers will play a big part, Muck said. Through a catch-and-transport program, they will deliver their live catch to the hatchery.
“We’ll start collecting fish in 2005, both steelhead and spring chinook,” Muck said. “If we need more, we can seine some deep pools.”
But why bother?
If you are going to use native fish exclusively, why not just get rid of the hatchery at the same time as the dam?
Two reasons, Muck said: fishermen and fishermen.
Without the continued operation of the hatchery, anglers never would have backed the removal of Marmot Dam.
And without the hatchery fish, you couldn’t have the fishing that the Sandy offers, he added.
“The Sandy’s always been one of the top 10 rivers in the state,” Muck said, referring to fishing. He added that because of its proximity to Portland, “this stream gets more fishing effort than any other stream in the state.”
Hatchery-raised Sandy stock still will be fin-clipped, so you can keep the ones you catch, he said.
And anglers shouldn’t notice much difference, except for more water in which to fish, after the dam disappears.
“The only thing they should see is a shift in run timing for steelhead. The wild fish return later in the year than the former Big Creek hatchery stocks,” Muck said. “You won’t see a change in the spring chinook.”
Clad in neoprene chest waders from a session in icy waters of the trap, Travis Schneider, a technician at the hatchery, grinned.
“I like the idea of going with an in-basin stock, so we’ll still have fishing in the basin.
“The fishermen, I think, are pretty happy. It’s a win-win situation for everybody.”

Everything sounds great when the media gets a hold of it. Funny how they don't mention the issue of native broodstock programs depleting the wild fish population of its genetic diversity. Don't be fooled, the wild broodstock programs are an experiment. Only time will tell if they have positive or negative impacts on the wild fish populations. I know some bio's who work on the Sandy who believe letting the fish breed on their own would be best for the fish.

http://www.ifish.net/cgi-local/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=010062

I have to think it is a good program, You reduce the risk of true hatchery fish mixing with the wild fish in the system. the offspring from the hatchery have Wild parents and are allowed to reproduce in the wild as no hatchery returning broodstock are bred from, So if 500 return through the guantlet to the trap I think this is 500 I know will have a chance to reproduce in the Wild enviroment. But as you state the Wild fish that are taken might be depleting the resource. But They could also be spawning in the bigger channels and there eggs lost in high or low water as the gravel shifts. So with the program I know that 55 pairs will be putting appox 180k smolt back into the system. And after the summers yearling checks you are not able to tell the difference between the wild or broodstock yearlings except one is fin clipped for the resource. No true hatchery fish mixing and weakening the wild gene. So on the river I participate in so far it appears to be helping as it has continued to meet it's escapement and increase as well, And also provide a good per-say wild resource for the people who would like to take something home. But remember everything hooked and released in this program give back positive Wild benifits to the System. Just my thoughts.

Also the persons in charge of the hatchery facility greatly inhance this program, As this was seen on our program, We got a person that knew Steelhead (Bio) and the returns greatly increased over the preveous person in charge. So having the right people in place greatly helps also.

Thanks POS, shows we have been there before.

I think a more ideal situation would be to let every river that has productive fish habitat (no dams, etc) produce it's own wild fish. Use the hatcheries on rivers that are a lost cause, like the Cow or Columbia. Use stocks of hatchery fish that will be unable to spawn with wild fish for temporal reasons, like ripening way too early or late to breed at the optimum time that natural selection has determined for wild fish. Also, seperate hatchery release points from productive environments - do things like delayed release from net pens or other type of artificial estuary to keep hatchery fish from competing with wild fish. Or at least release them way low in the river. Raise fewer, higher quality smolts and for sure mark every damn one. Let wild fish "overescape" like nature intended, and haul the hatchery carcases upstream for nourishment in systems where anadroumous access has been curtailed. And don't expect a lot from hatchery fish, after all any fish with "wild" tendencies, such as aggression, shyness, territoriality, etc. die out right away in the hatchery environment and are replaced by those that are easygoing, not shy or careful, and that take crowding and unnatural domestic conditions in stride. Of course these are mostly going to die in the real world, regardless of whether their parents were hatchery or wild. A potential cure for this is the "natural" hatchery, where the natural environment is somewhat duplicated and fish are fed minimal amounts of feed and forced to forage for the rest and hide from predators in relatively natural conditions. I believe they are trying this in the Dungeness.

No matter what, we are never going to be able to produce fish as well or as economically as they produce themselves. Most biologists know this, although the masses have not figured it out yet, so politics is still on the side of draconian hatchery practices and things like wild broodstock programs as are being pushed for the Sandy. Well, I guess the only good news is that things like this cost money, and since no one is willing to come up with enough to run them they will eventually die off. Hope they don't take they wild fish with them

In a perfect world, we wouldn't need a hatchery.

But we're in a far from perfect world, and if we're going to utilize hatchery fish, we need to be using something other than the Chambers Creek stock!

While broodstock programs are far from perfect, I think the pro's far outweight the con's when compared to the current system that we have in place

I agree with the previous statement by Bob. ON the Nooksack River in the 1980's the local TU club had a broodstocking program and the number of fish caught was around 1200 in 1985. Now the hatchery fish caught are less than 10% of that (not knowing the figures from last year which I am sure were higher). Chambers creek fish are inferior. We tried getting a broodstocking program back, but the bios said that the return times of the broodstocking program will interfere with the natives (later returning fish). The WDFW Steelhead Management Plan calls for broodstocking to only be approved on runs that are very low. Our problem on the Nooksack is very low compared to what?