Perhaps it is my imagination, but it seems difficult to get answers to questions that I have tried to clarify in my own mind. (It must be my delivery?)

I am honestly trying to determine if I understand correctly the following statements. The statements are mine, but may be in error. Please feel free to set me straight.

(1) The State takes WILD fish (salmon/steelhead), spawns them, clips the offspring, and plants them.

(2) The State, by performing this, contributes to the decline of wild fish stock by turning WILD fish into hatchery fish.

(3) The State receives money from the Feds to assist with re-establishing endangered wild stock.

Am I wrong? I really WANT to be wrong.

I am not trying to start trouble, but IF all three are true, does this seem right?

In the case of steelhead some 50 years ago, that's what they did.

The problem with Washington State hatcheries for the most part is that they have now taken the offsping from this original stock and used them over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and over, and ...

Imagine if you and your sister had kids, then those kids had kids and those kids, or maybe cousins had kids ... think there might be some problems??

That about sums it up ...

What you're descibing is more of a broodstock program that has seen wide use in Canada, a lesser extent, and just a little bit of use here in Washington.

I always thought that the solution was to use nothing but wild fish for hatchery stocking...Honestly don't know if Cowlitz did that or not but I know Ocean Farms of Hawaii used to buy nothing but wild eggs(or fry...don't remember now)...I know its not the holy grail but it seems like it would make the best out of a bad situation...but then, see my tag line

The main problem with raisng fish in a hatchery is that you get domestic hatchery fish, no matter what kind you start out with. The reason for this is both complex and simple at the same time. The simple version is that all fish have a suite of traits that allow them to adapt to a variety of situations. Fish that find themselves in a hatchery environment that have a tendency towards traits that would be useful in the wild, like territoriality, aggression, heightened fright reflex, etc., wind up on the tailscreen as pinheads, whereas fish that tend to be more domesticated and that tolerate crowding, are the first to the fish feeder when he comes by, are easily able to get over their natural flight reaction, etc. do great. Until they are released, that is, then they swim around looking for the pellets, stay in big crowded schools, swim up to the first heron they see looking for a handout, you get the picture. Nearly all die right away, a few revert to their wild tendencies in time to survive, most survive probably by dumb luck. None of these are going to compete well with their wild bretheren, however, especially when they find themselves in a big ocean with limited food during a El Nino year, still swimming around in big non-agressive schools. Do the math, 90% of wild fish die before they even migrate the ocean - it's a tough world. 90% of hatchery fish, however, survive to release size. However, in good years equal percentages return as adults. This means that 90% of those hatchery fish die before spawning, most in the first couple weeks after release. And when times are hard, the remainder are ill equipped to compete with wild fish, so nearly all die, like this year, whereas wild fish will return at a higher rate, maybe not as high as in good years, but not nearly as bad as the hatchery fish. What really sucks about all this is that a hatchery smolt is 1/10 as likely to survive as a wild smolt, so you would essentially need to release 10 times the hatchery fish as the river would produce naturally to get the same return, and you simply can't get there, any better than you can increase your beef production by putting 100 cows in a pasture that will support 10. When you do that you don't even get 10, you starve them all to death. That simple. You don't want to hear the complicated answer, with phenotypes and genotypes in it.

Spawnout, Just a question as to where your facts come from, When I talk to fish Bio's they tell me different things. And rivers that have not meet there native escapement in the last ten years have for the last two with these types of programs on them, So from what I am hearing broodstocking seems to be working, But I would like some hard facts and not from Oregon but from a successful well managed program. Can you assist.

Spawnout

Can you explain why hatchery fish have such a large "return rate" when they first start up a new hatchery program? I know that it drops off quickly, but why is the first couple of year return rate always so darn high?

I have never heard a good sensible explanation for it…have you?

Do you think that it was becuase of the orininal brood stock that was used?


Cowlitzfisherman

Steeliematt, the numbers I'm quoting are just general for comparison purposes between average survival of wild fish to smolt size vs. hatchery fish, again, generally in a hatchery 90% of eggs taken survive to smolt, whereas in the wild it's closer to 10%. These figures come from a compilation of Columbia tributary studies, many of which are in Oregon, but again are just general. And I did at one time manage the release/recapture facility of the largest coho hatchery in the world, that would be OreAqua with releases exceeding 20 million smolts, and have more than enough experience with fish culture, and fish genetics, than most.

Cowfish, that works every time you open up a new hatchery, and also almost every time you outplant a system with a different stock. The cause of this phenomenon has not been studied, but I would guess it relates to predator abundance - it probably takes a year or two for the predators to identify and adapt to preying upon new runs of fish. It probably also relates to disease and parasites, both of which take time to catch up with newly-established runs. Again, relating this to Oreaqua, at the peak of our operation there were over 20,000 common murres counted at the entrance to Yaquina Bay, and after we shut down that number declined to less than a thousand. Predators adapt to increases and decreases in prey - the predator/prey cycle is Biology 101 stuff but is about as valid as any science that has been brought to bear on this subject.

Thank You guys! Great Answers and Greatly Appreciated!

BTW Spawnout....gr8 pic! Where/how did you get it?