Some interesting insights to hatcheries-

FYI: From the May Native Fish Society Newsletter

SCIENCE IS OUR COMPASS: That’s what Dr. Jeffry Koenings said. He is the director of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and has shown strong support for research to answer questions about the impact of hatchery fish on the ecosystem. The WDFW has taken a strong stand on Mitchell Act funding to make sure that research projects like the Kalama River steelhead studies get the money they need to compare the reproductive success of hatchery and wild steelhead and to test the use of native broodstock .
Koenings has a lot to work with now. There are numerous scientific reports out addressing the need for hatchery reform. The most recent came for the Hatchery Scientific Review Group, evaluating hatchery programs in Washington. You can read that report at: http://www.hatcheryreform.org
The authors place hatcheries into two groups, defined by their function, They are either integrated hatcheries or they are segregated hatcheries.
They say that the legacy of hatchery development on the West Coast over the last 150 years have been segregated hatchery programs but there has been no effort to control the genetic or ecological interactions between hatchery and wild fish in the region’s rivers. Such hatcheries, they say, are no different than fish farms. “This approach…overlooks the ecological and genetic risks that these hatchery stocks pose to naturally spawning populations. These hatchery programs impose risks…not unlike those imposed by exotic or introduced species.”
By their definition in the hatchery reform proposal, a segregated hatchery program objective is to block gene flow from hatchery to wild fish populations. The more these two types of salmonids interbreed the greater the risk.
An integrated hatchery program is intended to minimize genetic risks to natural populations. These are the so-called “native broodstock hatcheries.” The authors say, “The key to success of an integrated hatchery program is the ability to distinguish natural and hatchery-origin fish as returning adults so that separate management strategies can be applied to the two gene pool composites…” That means marking all hatchery fish. Of course we have known this for years, but fish managers have been reluctant and the tribes have opposed.
“Hatchery-origin fish spawning naturally does not make a hatchery broodstock genetically integrated,” the authors say. “Only if natural-origin fish are included in the broodstock in a systematic, prescribed manner can the broodstock be considered genetically integrated. In this context the management goal of an integrated program is to maintain the genetic characteristics of naturally-spawning fish among hatchery-origin fish not vice-versa. The fundamental goal of an integrated program is for the hatchery broodstock to be as similar genetically as possible to the naturally spawning populations.”
“We are shooting ourselves in the foot if we continue to allow four times more hatchery fish than wild fish to spawn naturally in a river,” said Pat Hulett, a research biologist with WDFW.
A recent study on Hood River shows that naturally spawning hatchery fish from what are called domesticated stock have a reproductive success of only 17% when compared to the wild steelhead. This is an adult to adult comparison.
Pat Hulett provided information on wild and hatchery steelhead smolt to adult survival rate. The hatchery summer and winter steelhead smolt to adult survival rate from 1978 to 1984 averaged 5.2% (range 1.1% to 8.4%). For wild steelhead the smolt to adult survival rate for the same time period averaged 13.1% (range 6.4% to 27.1%).
The reproductive success and productivity of wild steelhead in a heavily stocked river is two and a half times higher on average than hatchery steelhead and over three time greater under high survival conditions. The question is this: Why do the fish management agencies continue to disregard the high productivity inherent in wild salmonids and continue to operate hatchery and harvest programs that increase the risk to wild populations? According to Jim Lichatowich, the main reason is that the fish managers are not accountable. They do not have to justify their management programs in terms of ecosystem health, wild fish protection, or consistency with their own scientific findings. Yet these managers spend hundreds of millions in public funds annually for hatchery programs. For example, ODFW expenditures for hatchery programs is $44.3 million in the 2001-2003 biennium.
The Hatchery Scientific Review Group has established a beach-head for hatchery reform aimed at making hatcheries scientifically consistent and protecting wild salmonids. But there have been many scientific reports advocating hatchery reform and little has been done to apply their recommendations. Since Director Koenings of WDFW said “Science is Our Compass” he has confirmed a commitment to hatchery reform.

Nice summary.... let's hope science preveails over poiltical expediency while we still have a chance to re-build wild salmon populations.

Rich -
Don't accept everything you read at face value!

The article quotes -
"the legacy of hatchery development on the West Coast over the last 150 years have been segregated hatchery programs but there has been no effort to control the genetic or ecological interactions between hatchery and wild fish in the region’s rivers"

Clearly the development of early timed winter steelhead hatchery brood stock has been used to limit genetic interactions between those hatchery fish and their wild counterparts. This of course is clearly a segregated program.

I found it interesting that while the HSRG's general recommendations are for intergrated programs when it came time for regional recommendations regarding steelhead programs the HSRG did not recommend changing those programs to intergrated ones.

The recommendation for the Snohomish hatchery winter steelhead is the same for all the steelhead programs that I have read (Puget Sound regions). It was - "Minimize interaction with natural spawning steelhead when implementing a segregrated program through such tools as differential timing and a decision on benefits and risks on outplanting in freshwater habitats."

It is my opinion that based on the extended freshwater rearing of hatchery steelhead smolts (1 year) and the need to compress what is normally a 2 year rearing period into a single year that for many steelhead populations a segregated program presents fewer genetic/productivity risks to the wild population than an intergrated one. This of course is due to likely domestication of the hatchery fish during this prolong and selective rearing.

I'm not sure what the point was in comparing the relative return rates of hatchery and wild steelhead smolts. Clearly the hatchery smolts would incluce less fit fish that would have been elinimated in the wild. Perhaps a comparison that would be informative would be to look at egg to adult survivals. Often in the wild only 1% of the eggs deposited survive to be a smolt and with a 13.1% average survival 0.13% of the eggs would survive to adulthood. While with hatchery fish often 50 to 80% of the eggs survive to be smolts and with a 5.2% survival 2.6 to 4.16% of the eggs would become adults - a survival 20 to 30 times higher than the wild fish.

While I'm not suggesting that hatchery fish repalce wild fish - clearly the science indicates that wild fish are as much as 8 times as productive as the hatchery fish when spawning in the wild however just as clearly hatchery fish are much more productive in producing returning fish for such things as harvest or even in some limited stock recovery programs.

Yes science should be the compass for our hatchery programs but that science needs to be carefully considered in the full context of each circumstance - looking at the specifics of each river system giving careful and full consideration of the details of the hatchery program, the wild fish needs and the needs of the diverse user groups. In short one size will not fit all needs.

Tight lines
S malma