Smalma,

That fish was caught in April of 1997, or maybe 1998...I can't remember.

It's good news that the possibility of a fish like that fish being there this April is much, much lower.

On the concern of hatchery introgression, that's not really much of a concern to me. The studies noted above all pretty much say that cross breeding between wild and hatchery fish rarely produce any viable adult returns. The concern is the loss of productivity of a wild hen if she spawns with a hatchery buck, removing her productivity, or a lot of it, from the gene pool.

Doc,

A few months ago reps from LLTK and the HSRG came and presented their work at a Wild Steelhead Coalition meeting, and it was very interesting.

Integrated vs. segregated hatchery programs is a difficult choice to make. If run properly, both are much better than what we've done over time.

Segregated should have the least likelihood of hatchery/wild integration, but would go against the chances of trying to recover the early returning component of the wild run.

Integrated would spread the fishing out over the season, which would also put more fishermen on the rivers in March in April, putting more pressure on the wild runs. These fish would also have a much higher chance of spawning in the wild, and even if they are closer to the wild fish, they are still hatchery fish. All the discussion above shows what the possible results of that could be.

The key to having segregated runs is not only to separate them temporally, but to have excellent collection facilities to get nearly every fish that doesn't get harvested by fishermen.

If such collection facilities or techniques could be utilized, why couldn't they also be utilized in March and April to catch broodstock from the integrated type of hatchery fish, thereby reducing the chances of those fish spawning in the wild, too?

Fish on...

Todd.

On the issue of segragating the runs (wild vs. hatchery), would it not be possible to imprint the hatchery fish with a distinctive home?

This may already be a practice, but if the hatchery releases (or hatcheries) were to be located just upstream in a feeder (Like the Baker), would not those smolts be imprinted with the Baker smell, vs. the Skagit?

I don't know how many fish might spawn elsewhere besides their "home" waters, but in the case of the Baker there is a clear (actually muddy) separation of the waters for quite a ways downriver, so much so that I am told the hatchery fish hang to the North side of the Skagit as they come upriver, as it smells like "home".



If the wild fish are spawning elsewhere, it makes sense to create a separation using the natural flows of feeder streams, making them "home" for the hatchery fish and an obvious spot for sportsmen/hatchery to control the returning population.

This *may* already be a practice of the hatcheries...seems logical. (and that's dangerous..LOL)

Mike

That's a great lookin fish!!!!!!! I was hoping that it would show up in this thread. Good times!!!!

BR

S malma

I found my way to a long bibliography of papers on wild:hatchery co-mingling compiled by Bill Bakke that contained many of the works you cited.

In reviewing some of these abstracts on steelhead and chinook, it is unclear to me whether the observations of poor productivity by naturally spawning fish of hatchery origin would still hold up in a program where locally adapted wild broodstock was used for artificial propagation.

Is there any more recent work out there that looks specifically at the natural productivity of hatchery fish derived from locally adapted wild broodstock? The results from the Kalama studies should be no surprise as a poorly adapted non-local broodstock was used.

I have seen the use of locally adapted wild brood stock advocated repeatedly, but is there any hard evidence out there that shows it really makes a difference?

FishNDoc-
I'm not aware of any peer review published studies on the relative productivity of hatchery fish using native brood stock. Some of the prelim info that I have heard about seems to indicate that those hatchery fish are not much less productive than the native fish - the numbers that are kicked around is about 90% as productive for the HxH and HxW crosses. I suspect that it will be several more years before there is more detailed information. The ultimate answer will likely depend on how different the selective pressures are on those fish raised in the hatchery and those that are produced by the natural system.

Clearly those established hatchery brood stocks are less productive and any new brood stock; even those using wild fish have the first step down that slide of lost productivity cause by domestication.

Tight lines'
S malma