some time back our local weeky in one of those 100 years 75 years ago columns had a small item about the local cannerys had brought in king eggs from the sacremto river in cal. and plant them in the chehalis river. the reason for this was to get an earlier run of fish. the state has been planting silvers in the satsop for as long as i can remenber.
the state has made plants of steelhead in the chehalis and satsop off and on for 40 years. so are there any true wild fish left in the chehlais system? what do you think.

This is a legal mumbo-jumbo question. The real answer is no, there probably are not. Somewhere in all steelhead or salmon ancestries, I suspect, lies the direct influence of man.

All is a huge word....shows how effective we've been.

I think the focus now days is to recapture as much of the "wild" influence as possible.

I think also that it is a loosing battle....one that is impossible to win as long as these fish are commercially marketed.

Larry ... run a search on "wild fish genetics' (or similar) on the BB, I know there was recently a thread that discussed some the genetic studies that have been done that show in some instances, there are still wild strains left.

Larry,

It depends partly on your definition of "wild." Not everyone uses the same one. If you mean native to the Chehalis River basin (genetically) and wild in the sense of not having any artificial rearing in their life history, then yes, I believe there are a lot of steelhead in the Chehalis that qualify. Probably most of them. The Wynoochee is stocked with hatchery fish of native stock and non-native winter and summer fish, but there likely isn't much inter-breeding between the natives (hatchery or wild) and the non-natives, due to the difference in time of spawning. The Skookumchuck is stocked with hatchery steelhead, also from native broodstock.

If we had genetic samples from 100 years ago, I doubt we would observe much or any genetic difference between those fish and the wild steelhead returning today. Hatchery culture modifies steelhead a lot, but nature selects heavily against those traits when the hatchery fish spawn naturally. Studies in other river systems indicate a very low rate of successful reproduction for hatchery steelhead.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

Larry,

Do a search for Hooten's study, and for Chilchote's, about wild/hatchery interbreeding. I believe they were done on the Kalama and Keogh (B.C.) rivers. They back up exactly what Salmo g. is saying.

Fish on...

Todd.