Parker,

The research we have (primarily Kalama River) indicates that hatchery steelhead spawning in the natural environment produces few to no returning adults. Same for hatchery X wild crosses, which is why we'd rather not have hatchery fish spawning with a wild fish. It's wastes the production potential of one wild spawner. Wild X wild is what produces returning adults.

I've seen hatchery winter runs spawning in tributary streams in early winter, but those same creeks never get any subsequent "wild" early returning steelhead.

Now, regarding absolutes, never say never (see above). Some wild runs appear to have been developed by naturally spawning hatchery fish, mainly summer runs. Hatchery summer runs are more in synchrony with natural spawning times, and, I suppose, more likely to survive. And, to repeat an example, late winter hatchery fry have been planted in the upper Cowlitz River basin and appear to have developed a small return of native, naturally rearing, Cowlitz late winter steelhead.

To repeat Eddie, conventional wisdom has it that hatchery winter steelhead generally don't make the cut when it comes to successful reproduction in the wild.

Sincerely,

Salmo g.

I heard the same thing from Pete Soverel at the Wild Salmon Center. Hatchery fish spawning in the wild yield negligible numbers of returning adults. Why take a chance on wasting the reproductive potential of a native by "poisoning" it with a hatchery cross. They may produce juveniles, but damned few of them survive to adulthood. In the meantime those juveniles will just compete with wild ones, further diminishing wild productivity.

The big question is do these observations at the Kalama River hold up in the setting of a wild broodstock hatchery program? Salmo G?

If all the fish in a river are created using only wild broodstock than the only real difference is a missing adipose fin,can the missing fin really mean its a weaker fish not able to spawn ?
Is there proof that hatchery fish produced from wild brood are not able to spawn.
As far as killing wild steelhead its time that this practice was given up completely.Up here in british columbia you can really see how well the wild release system works when you look at the rivers in the northern part of the province.Killing wilds,sure glad i never witnessed this in my lifetime.

DK,

My understanding of the broodstock spawning in the wild issue is that they do better than non-local hatchery fish, but not as well as wild fish.

They are not the same as the wild fish, and any time spent in any sort of hatchery will create that difference. They are, however, much better than Chambers Creek fish.

The studies I have seen do not support broodstocking as producing more fish than wild spawning. In a nutshell, the wild fish removed from the river to enter a broodstock program would have produced more returning adults than the very same fish used in a broodstock program.

The difference is that the fish returning are now marked hatchery fish slated for harvest, removing the original wild fish's offspring from the wild gene pool as effectively as if she had just been bonked.

If you support broodstock programs because they produce higher quality fish for harvest and have a smaller bad effect on wild fish if they are allowed to spawn in the wild, then you are correct.

If you support them as a way to help wild fish, then you are not.

The Kalama studies have produced consistent results throughout the study period. WxW crosses have high smolt production and high adult returns, relatively speaking. HxH crosses have high smolt production, and statistically have no adult returns. HxW crosses have high smolt production, too, and while they have a statistically measurable amount of adult return, it is a significant reduction in productivity for the wild fish in the cross.

I just read that and it's not very clear, so I'll make an example.

If a wild male and wild female spawn, they produce X smolts, and return Y adults. If a hatchery male and wild female spawn, they also produce around X smolts, but return .1Y adults.

That cross just removed 90% of the wild female's productivity.

The other issue is that all those crosses do produce smolts that take up valuable habitat in rivers and compete with all the other smolts and reduce their opportunities. Then those crosses go out to see and never come back.

Those are the reasons why you are always doing wild steelhead a favor by bonking as many hatchery fish as possible, especially in rivers that do not have collection facilities and are outplanted there.

Fish on...

Todd.

Hatcheryfish and wild fish are completely different. You have removed the natural selection process from the hatchery fish even if they came from wild stock. So you do not know what they will be passing on genetically.
Hatchery supported fisheries in systems with wild stock are present is the worst thing that can happen to wild fish in that ecosystem. It will wipe all of them out when is the only question. The only thing that keeps the hatcheries open is the pressure from political groups and state and federal orgs protectiong their empires. If we really wanted to preserve wild strains they would all be shut down and all hatchery fish killed.

I don't know why anybody ever thinks about this: HATCHERY STEELHEAD AND WILD STEELDEAD ARE THE SAME! I do know that between different watershed fish can be longer, shorter, bigger etc. because they are specialized for that river. But what about natural straying? Why do peolple complain about hatchery plants? One reson fish stary is to make sure the species does not break appart into subspecies in every river drainage. I know wild steelhead grew up in the river and have better survival instincts, but an off spring from hatcher/wild parents would have the same experiences.

Think of it this way. You take two human twins and seperate them at birth. One is raised in New York city and the other is raised in the farm lands in Eastern Washington. One is raised in concrete surroundings with everything done for him, (sound familier?) the other one is raised in open land and has to work for an living. THESE TWO PEOPLE HAVE THE SAME GENETICS! Even though they where raised in different areas. Let's say this goes on for a few generations. Then one day, two people meet, one from the New York family the other from the Eastern Washington family and they get married and have a kid (you didn't know this was a love story did you? ). They then branch off and raise this kid in Southern China. This new kid is raised in compleatly different surroundings BUT STILL HAS THE SAME GENES.

Now, sombody tell me why this is not the same in steelhead?

Because the wildfish had to face many more adverse conditions to get big enough to head out to sea. The weak are removed at all levels by disease, predation, enviornmantal factors whatever. Hatchery fish are hand raised until they are big enough and you do not know which ones would have died in natural conditons so they get a hand up in returning to spawn. So ultimately if they are allowed to breed with wild stock they water down the gentics. Ultimately leading to more mortality and the system crashing if an event happens that pure wild fish would have been self selected to withstand.

Your twins example is not valid as an example. You would have to set one twin free to fend for itself in Bangledesh to be comparable?

rcl187 - I believe, "if I catch it I kill it" mentallity led to the early shut down on the lower skagit last season.

Todd - I think Beezer hit it on the nose for cnr on the sauk/skagit. I once read that when cnr begins on the skagit the Pow Wows pull there nets. But do you really believe everthing you read. Apparently if they don't kill we don't kill.

When I find a scanner I will post a pic of a hatchery fish caught during cnr that was more than capable of spawning. That is, with your permission Todd.

- A solution to the problem might be taking extra pictures. Like 50, or a 100. At least a 20 minute photo session. Pass the fish around let every one get a picture. If Parker's Wild Fish Handling Law goes into effect next season, you won't be breaking the law. Heck, its not a wild fish.

LT

Todd -
An interesting topic.

First you as part of your reason to keep fish you said "Last year's dismal hatchery winter run return on the coast proves that if people can't catch enough hatchery steelhead to fulfill their freezer filling needs, they will keep wild fish if legal to do so."

I remember the discussion we had on this site regarding that issue and the position that many took that reflected your position. However the creel checks from this year seems to continue to indicate that anglers still want to keep wild fish regardless of how many hatchery fish are around. In the 2002/03 season the anglers reported through the Janaury 19 keeping 74 out of 86 wild fish caught or 86%. In the same period they kept 274 out of 294 hatchery fish caught or 93%. This year through the Janaury 18 clearly the checks show the hatchery fishing much better. The anglers kept 88 out of 119 wild fish caught or 74% while keeping 1,159 out of 1,398 hatchery fish or 82%. With more fish available the anglers appear to be more willing to release fish with the % of kept down about 10% in 2003/04 from that in 2002/03. However it still appears that the majorit of anglers fishing the Quillayute still prefer to bonk some wild fish.

To the topic at hand -
When the first catch and release season were put in place in the Puget Sound region the hatchery fish were not marked. Believe that the first year that the majority of the hatchery fish were marked in the Puget Sound region were released in 1983. By the mid-1980s when there were easily identifiable hatchery fish (either late winter hatchery or early summers) as suggested by others the retention of the hatchery fish was prohibited in part for the easy of enforcement. However another factor considered at the time was that if the anglers knew going into the fishery that all steelhead must be released they were more accepting of the CnR philosophy and tended to handle the fish better, especially when they were not checking to see if it were hatchery or wild.

In the case of the Sauk/Skagit example currently there would be few un-spawned hatchery fish available in the March/April time frame. In the last decade or so the trapping information from the hatchery shows that the hatchery winter females (Chamber's type) have completed spawning by the end of the February and summers are no longer planted in the basin.

Tight lines
Smalma

Todd

Your last post jives with every credible discussion I have heard and read on the subject of hatchery productivity vs wild productivity. It really confirmed my suspicions about how even these "designer" local broodstock hatchery programs, while touted as a better alternative to old hatchery ways, still fall short of true wild production.

As I stated in the thread about MSY last month, at no time in the history of hatchery "enhancement" or "restoration" programs has it been shown that hatcheries come anywhere close to wild production. The question then is why do we continue to mine wild eggs from rivers with healthy wild runs, when all the data shows that production would have been maximized by allowing those fish to seed the gravel naturally? Salmo g? S malma? CFM?

Is the following really acceptable language here? Is it even literate? Just asking what your standards are?

[QUOTE] I once read that when cnr begins on the skagit the Pow Wows pull there nets.

Ok.....I'm calling B.S. .....I've heard this all before and there are a couple of points that don't ring true and are, in my opinion, completely misleading and erroneous.

First... Taking wild brood stock and spawning them and releasing them as fry should NOT constitute a hatchery raised definition!! All that has happened is that man has intervened and assured the highest possible hatch rate. It is ridiculous to think that these tiny fish have learned anything about their surroundings that will impair their natural instincts. If you hatch wild fish and release them as fry, all you have done is up the odds of more surviving the hatching process. To clip these fish and thereby classify them as "hatchery raised" does no justice whatsoever to their true origin. This process should be used ONLY for fish raised and fed in rearing ponds and held there for extended periods of time, not for hatched and immediately (or nearly) released fry. Would they require special handling during the release?...you bet....so what?

Secondly... Who can really buy the concept that only the weak and impaired offspring are lost in the "natural selection" process??? This concept is overplayed to the hilt! It is indeed "natural selection" when a log rolls through a redd, or a redd gets buried because a river bank slides, or a torrential rain causes a river to abandon it's old riverbed, BUT that does NOT mean that we can't do something to assist nature other than wring our hands. We have the technology, willingness, and ability to rebuild wild runs by insuring the highest possible survival rate.

Does it only seem odd to me that us humans go overboard to insure we do everything possible to assure the survival of our most crippled offspring, yet when it's convenient, declare "nature knows best?"

See why I don't like to wrangle with WDFW?

Doc,

I think it's pretty clear why, there are three reasons.

1. Harvest mentality.
2. Harvest mentality.
3. Harvest mentality.

There might be a few more, but they'll all be different variations on the first three.

The most time spent by both the feds and the state regarding recovery of depressed runs always comes with how to selectively fish around them while having harvest fisheries.

For a really obvious example, just look to the Columbia River. If memory serves me correctly, a couple of years ago the allowable impact of a commercial fishery on endangered Redfish Lake Sockeye was FIVE fish. And they had a commercial fishery, with a buffer of FIVE fish. Not 5000, not 500.

FIVE.

Why? Because of all the hatchery fish there that are there to be harvested, must be harvested, and will be harvested, endangered sockeye, steelhead, and spring chinook be damned.

And I'm not just blaming this on the WDFW/Commerical Fishing Lobby relationship, the Feds are right in step, until they are sued by conservation groups forcing them to list fish that ought to have been protected long before, and should have been listed long before.

Why weren't they protected or listed? The protections, and the ESA, get in the way of all the fish that MUST be harvested.

Anyone know the name of the plan to recover listed chinook salmon in Puget Sound?

"Fishing our way to Recovery"

Now...there are ways to selectively fish around depressed fish. And no user group is better at it than sportfishermen. What with proper gear use (often required, and often used even not when required) and proper catch and release techniques (sometimes required, sometimes based on education), not to mention closures that suspend or end fishing in some places at some times.

Until the commercial industry starts using selective fishing techniques (NOT coho nets to selectively catch hatchery springers while catching and releasing 2/3 of the fish that swim into the nets, 1/3 of which are steelhead, steelhead that are the size of fish that are MEANT to be gilled by coho nets, not tangled), they have no business fishing over those Col. R. runs.

Using a net that catches two listed wild fish for every target hatchery fish, and that net is designed to catch and kill half of those listed fish, is not selective fishing.

Who will make it so? I'll be a bit cynical for a second, but I don't think that the commercial industry will adopt a more selective technique on their own.

The obvious answer is that WDFW must make them do it. Why don't they? I'll be cynical again, but I'd refer to reasons 1 thru 3 above for the answer.

Here will be the only way to prove me wrong that is available to WDFW right now. If NOAA Fisheries comes back and approves a 7% impact on listed ESA steelhead during the next two years' spring chinook fisheries, it will be up to WDFW to create a season doing so, and up to the WDFW Commission to approve it.

If WDFW is really serious about fish recovery, beyond lip service and continued restriction of sport opportunities, then they will not even ask the Commission to approve such an obviously irresponsible harvest mentality. And if they do ask, the Commission needs to say "NO".

Will NOAA Fisheries reopen the BiOp, study it, and approve a 7% allowable impact? I sure hope not...and they will receive a ton of science outlining the reasons why they shouldn't, from many, many different sources.

If they do approve it, and any legal challenges are unsuccessful, in spite of all the warm fuzzy feelings I have about it, I doubt WDFW would wait more than, oh, four minutes before going to the Commission and asking for it.

I hope the Commission will step up...I actually do have a lot of faith in them.

Doc, I guess that was a really long-winded effort at answering your question, and one that used a different context completely than the original situation, but it applies just as well.

Mining wild eggs, that are much more valuable and productive in the river rather than in the broodstock ponds, is done to create more and bigger hatchery fish for harvest.

That's not to say that all broodstock programs are bad, just that they need to be gone into with goals that can be measured, and use wild fish that the wild run can afford.

It's a balancing act, one that the benefits must outweigh the detriments. If two wild fish can produce six wild adults, and two fish in a broodstock program can produce four hatchery fish, that clearly is not right. If it can produce ten fish, and ten less fish are produced in response from a "regular" hatchery, then perhaps it is right.

The age of factory hatcheries attempting to live with wild fish is over...and everyone knows it. We either live without factory hatcheries, or we live without wild fish.

If my typing fingers had a throat, they'd be losing their voice by now. Sorry for the long winded rant.

Fish on...

Todd.

Lunch Time, go ahead and post the picture, or mail it to me and I will. If I remember correctly, that fish was caught mid-April?

F5A, it is against the law to NOT mark those fish when they are released. In spite of your opinions, they are indeed hatchery fish. And they are generally not released as fry. For most broodstock programs the only difference between them and regular hatcheries is the adult fish they spawn in the hatchery...the rest is identical.

Smalma, even if there are only a few fish left in the river to spawn, like in the case of the Skagit and Sauk, why should they be released if caught in March or April?

What if we're talking the Satsop or Wynoochee, or the Skookumchuck, where hatchery fish run much later than PS hatchery fish?

Fishjunky, not to put too fine a point on it, the reason people don't recognize hatchery and wild fish as the same is because they're not. Not even close, unless you're a farmer from Oregon or Northern California.

To make your example work, you would have to have one twin raised by wolves and one raised in Buckingham Palace, and the one raised by the Queen would have to bark and howl as well as the one raised by wolves, without ever meeting wolves. Or have one drop out of high school while one gets an MBA, and the dropout can do financial statements as well as the MBA.

It's not impossible, just really damned unlikely.

Fish on...

Todd.

Todd.... With all due respect, the "against the law" argument is NOT a biologically sound reason....it's an excuse. How do we get it changed? and Why hasn't it already been addressed?

Same with... again.....Why?

Fun5,

I'll address them in reverse order from how you wrote them...

The reason they aren't released as fry is because then they wouldn't have a very high success rate...that's the big bonus of hatchery fish is that by the time they hit the river they are already too big to have to deal with the issues that kill 99% of the fish before they reach parr or smolt stage.

And...since that is true, the fish are not a lot different than regular hatchery fish, and the law requries them to be clipped so that they can be harvested or removed from the river pre-spawn by hatchery personnel at fish racks or other collection facilities.

The biggest concern about tribal fishing and tribal hatcheries is that they DON'T clip their hatchery steelhead, thereby making it all but impossible to count how many wild fish there actually are in the river, thereby not being able to use the reduced amount of wild fish in the river as a reason to curtail commercial netting.

Clipping hatchery fish is one of the easy and fundamental activities that must be used in order to accurately evaluate both wild fish runs and hatchery fish success, and to provide fish for harvest. Always remember that broodstock programs are for providing fish for HARVEST, not for anything else.

Fish on...

Todd.
Fish on...

Todd.

FishNDoc -
When discussing production one probably needs to be careful with that definition. If by production on means having more fish to catch there are many examples of mining wild fish to produce hatchery fish that produce many times more fish to be caught than if those fish were left to spawn. If by production one means natural production then you argue would have some merit though there are examples where wild populations have been "jump started" with hatchery releases - one that many may be familar with is the wild coho above Sunset Falls. That population exists above a historical anadromous barrier which was seeded with hatchery fish and now 50 years later produces 10,000s wild coho.

Fish5-
There is a 1/2 a century of fish culture history using steelhead fry releases from wild and/or hatchery parents that has shown that strategy produces very few fish. Attempts at steelhead hatchery production has been around for a century. There was little success until the late 1940s/early 1950s that the bios for the Game Department learned through trail and error (mostly error) that until the fish were reared to smolt size (6 to 8 inches) and released at the time of year that wild smolts migrate (spring) was there any measureable success (returns).

Fry releases can be successful with some other speceis - pinks, chums, sockeye and sometimes chinook. However their biology and behaviors are much different than steelhead.

Todd -
In regards in bonking those few fish that may be around in the late spring (the Skagit example). I guess I would flip the question around - If there are only few fish why potential increase the risk to the wild fish by having additional enforcement problems (heaven knows we need as efficient enforcement as we can get) or increase the potential handling of the wild fish.

You have railed quite eloquently against harvest impacts on wild steelhead from fisheries targeting other fish. Here you seem to be on the other side of the issue. The only reason might be if one thought that the risks from them spawning in the wild out weight the outer risks.

You concerns with "wild brood stock" programs using later time fish just touches on some of the potential harvest management problems that can arise from such programs.

Tight lines
Smalma

F5A

If you haven't read James Lichatowich's "Salmon Without Rivers" get a hold of a copy or borrow one from your local library. Todd's discussion will make a whole lot more sense to you.

Re: why not release broodstock progeny as fry? A little history is in order. It used to be that all hatchery programs in WA released their hatchlings as fry. This was done willie nillie with wild eggs mined by the millions from here, there, and everywhere without regard for the drainage-specific adaptations and traits of the egg source.

Hatchery managers felt their only charge was to "help" get those eggs past the perils of natural hatching, then turn bazillions of the little buggers loose into whatever river they wished to "enhance". These guys would pat themselves on the back and celebrate their ability to seemingly manufacture salmon at will. And why did they need to do this? As Todd already stated above, to feed an insatiable commercial fishery. The only problem is they measured their success solely by the number of eggs hatched, and never once considered how many (or more correctly how pitifully few) adults actually returned as a result of their efforts. As long as wild salmon continued to ascend the Columbia and other major salmon superhighways, fish managers could continue to take the credit for producing that bounty. WHAT A CROCK!

When runs like the Columbia began to crash, the answer was... you guessed it... mine more eggs for more hatchery "production." When runs still failed to rebound, someone surmised that perhaps we could do better by "helping" more of those bazillions of fry to actually make it to the ocean. Suddenly hatcheries were retaining their hatchlings all the way to smolt stage, and thus here we sit today.

Those in-the-know tell us that "improved" hatchery practices using locally adapted broodstock is the way to go. Now the question is whether to release them as fry or smolt? If we really want to mimic wild productivity (as measured by returning adult progeny), then the answer is obvious.... release them as fry.

The real question is whether those returns will truly fare better under a scenario of mining wild broodstock eggs for artificial hatching versus one of natural spawning. It is a dangerous human conceit to assume we can always "improve" upon Mother Nature. Before spending bazillions of dollars on ever more artificial propogation, the practice must held accountable. Hatchery mangers must demonstrate that technology can actually deliver on the promise of "improved" productivity over what would otherwis occur in nature. Sadly, such evidence is sorely lacking.

Sorry, I suffer from the same affliction as Todd when it comes to these long-winded posts. Hard to really get to the heart of these complex issues using 4th grade reading-level sound-bytes.

Smalma,

I think you're suggesting that leaving the Skagit open to harvest the few remaining hatchery fish during the usual catch and release fishery might increase the pressure there...as folks who wouldn't normally fish there might if they could possibly harvest a fish.

Were that the case, then I would be open to have my mind changed. I doubt, however, that if there were, say, fifty fish in the entire river system to harvest in March and April that people looking to harvest a fish would actually go there and try to catch them. They'd be better off buying a lottery ticket, as there may not even be fifty in the 120 miles of rivers to fish in that system.

I'll admit that I am assuming no increase in fishing pressure due to the possibility of harvesting a hatchery fish.

This idea is the exact opposite of what is happening on the Columbia...there, very, very few wild fish (relative to the hatchery spring chinook) are being snapped up as bycatch during a fishery targeting hatchery fish, albeit not very successfully.

My scenario on the Skagit would, perhaps naively, actually improve the plight of wild fish by not increasing the impact on them, but actually reducing it by removing the remaining hatchery fish from the river.

Smalma, will you please shoot me an e-mail as I have some stuff to ask you about that I'd like to take off the BB, and my operator error has failed to import my e-mail list from my old computer to my new one. I'd really appreciate it.

Doc, you've just described one of the more interesting aspects of hatchery production. I'm not sure who said it first, but I heard it first from Sinkitip...

Hatchery programs are evaluated by how many juvenile fish they produce, rather than by how many adults return. It's like paying farmers for how many seeds they plant rather than for how many bushels of corn they produce.

That is starting to change, but it is so ingrained in the hatchery mentality that it's dying a long death.

How many of you steelheaders check the last few years' hatchery returns, rather than looking at the last few years' smolt releases ?

Fish on...

Todd.
c_n_r_nates@hotmail.com

Todd -
You have mail -

My point above to be blunt is that experience has shown that if any fish retention is allowed (no matter how remote) the fishery draws a slightly different crowd which may not be as careful with released fish as those in a completely CnR fishery. Take a drive the full length of the Skagit during the WSR fishery and compare the anglers, methods, and attidutdes with those you find in the CnR season. Remember in the WSR fisheries generally the number of hatchery fish out number the wild while during a CnR fishery the wild fish out number the few hatchery fish - I for one think that is an important difference.

Tight lines
Smalma