Perfectly normal or not, wouldn't it be an advantage to know what the loss was from before you address long term viability for hatchery supplementation? Oncy T's last link spoke directly to what types of selective traits can skew genetic success/productivity results. We don't even know what the cause is, much less how it affects attributes we select for supplementation. What kind of accuracy will we get from studies done with an 800lb gorilla in the room? As excited as I was to learn the possible opportunities associated with such a controlled study, it all falls apart with the amount of unknown impact.

It would be great to know, of course...but knowing the fact that 90% of them smolts don't make it out of Puget Sound and making a leap to the idea that the problem is right there, might not be such a good idea.

If we found out that it was due to human activity (which I wouldn't be surprised by at all), I have little faith that we'd do anything to fix it...we already know a ton of things that are caused by human activity, and we haven't tried to fix them one bit.

Fish on...

Todd

Todd, " making a leap to the idea that the problem is right there " is independent of the possible conclusions made from long term hatchery supplementation studies done using genetic factors and behavioral traits to determine percentage of spawning success. Ensuring we know the actual selective traits of the supplemented stocks and why they work or don't in a given scenario means everything to the feasibility of the results IMO.

The biggest hurdle to recovery might be out-migrating factors, might not. How it affects the genetic studies is another beast entirely.

The consensus seems to be that as the human population grows, the fish population plumets. The fish can't evolve fast enough to compensate for human impacts (nothing new). The small ecological environments are gonna go first because they have a smaller timeline for destruction. I'm not a science nerd like Tod , but those are just my simple observations. I'm sure the dead zone has alot to do with it. Earlier this year there was a potential for massive fish kill if wind had blown in a certain direction and uprooted stagnant water. Hatcheries just compound the problem by impairing the genetics. The Hood Canal historicaly has lower oxygen levels, so if those fish want to make it to the open ocean and back or survive as residence, they gotta be tough. If the hatcheries supplimented those rivers with fish from outside populations, that hadn't developed the unique characteristics that the Hood Canal fish need to survive, then they potentialy destroyed or diffused those characteristics that the fish had developed in order to thrive in those conditions. They basicaly wiped out years of evolution. It's not just their fitness (or their ability to procreate) that has been impacted by genetic disruption. If there's one place to develope new idea's for salmon/steelhead restoration it's going to be in the Hood Canal. The Puget Sound is on it's way to being a larger horror story.

....my shot at being smart

YouTube Rocks:
Hood Canal Dead Zone Footage


Here's some dead water articles:

http://www.psparchives.com/publications/...te_factor_2.pdf

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/sep/01/scientists-discuss-ambitious-effort-to-fix-hood/

They've also been tearing up the little quilcene to make it more natural again:

http://www.kitsapsun.com/news/2009/sep/19/massive-effort-under-way-to-take-back-the-little/

Shocking video. Sooo sad. What are we doing? Pointing fingers at each other.

AuntyM -
The repeat spawner rate is not a very good indication of whether over fishing is occurring or not. On the Puget Sound rivers the repeat spawner rate was measured as the portion of the previous years escapement that returned the following year. If that measured rate was say 15% it still would be 15% if no fishing had occurred. From all indications that repeat rate in this part of the world has always been low.

Yes places like Alaska and Russia have very high levels of repeat spawners but I would ask the question why. If there is a repeat spawning rate of say 75% is that really saying that for every 1000 spawners only 250 recruits are returning? I suspect that we see high repeat spawning rates in those kinds of places because they are the fringes of the species/live history distribution and in that harsh envirnoment the fish need multiple chances at spawning to be assured of having a decent chance to contribute to future generations. Following the same logic I would argue that populations from the center of the species range are typically more productive and are not as dependent on repeat spawners for population stability.

Firefish -
The harvest rates in the 1980s and 1990s for the Puget Sound rivers were lower than those seen in previous decades. Further at least until the mid-1990s on at least some of the rivers increasing wild runs and escapements were being seen.

I agree with many that MSY management - specifically the maximum sustained use of a population's productivity - is the underlying cause for much of the currrent problems. The unfortunately reality is that the majority of that use of a stock's productivity has been for society in general benefits (such things as ag, forestry, development, water, power, etc) and very little to support fishing. Which of course explains why even the elimination of all harvest or fishing is not capable of returning the popualtions to former abundances.

Tight lines
Curt

AuntyM-
Did not mean to dis-respect you! I often hear that the low rate of repeat spawners in Washington is evidence that over fishing had occured. My point is that is not necessarily so.

You are correct of course that having more fish on the spawning grounds will mean more eggs in the gravel. And yes it has been my experience that repeat spawners consistently have more eggs than first time spawners. It is easy to imagine that have those additional eggs is important; especially for population stability and every effort should be made to avoid selection against those fish (most commonly occurring by harvesting kelts).

Believe it or not I have thought a fair amount the question about selection for or against a repeat spawner trait. I think I understand how selection against size works for those Chinook or how removing the biters lead to the non-biters. However I can not think of how fishing on incoming runs selects against the likelyhood of repeat spawning -would not those fish likely to repeat and those not to repeat be equally likely to be caught in the fishery? In fact the potential selection that I can think would be selecting for more repeat spanwers not less.

If there is a genetic trait for repeat spawning then those fish surviving to repeat spawn would likely have that trait and with their increased numbers of eggs contribute more of the trait to the next generation leading to more repeat spawners.

Maybe some in this discussion with a better understanding of steelhead, steelhead behavior and steelhead fisheries can explain what selection occured against repeat spawning.

Tight lines
Curt

The abstract and study on the redd experiment of Hamma Hamma River.
http://www.stockenhancement.org/pdf/conservation_hatchery_impact_2008.pdf

Conservation hatcheries for anadromous salmonids that aim to increase production and minimizing genetic, ecological, and demographic risks have not been experimentally tested for their ability to increase number of adults spawning in the natural environment. The conservation hatchery program for steelhead (i.e., sea-run rainbow trout, Oncorhynchus mykiss) evaluated in this study caused an increase in the number of redds in the supplemented Hamma Hamma River compared with the presupplementation period. Three control populations (nonsupplemented) either remained stable or declined over the same period.
The increase in redds from hatchery-produced spawners did not reduce the redd production from natural-origin spawners. The strategy of rearing and releasing adult steelhead accounted for the greatest proportion of redd abundance increases. Environmentally induced differences in spawn timing between the adult release group and anadromous adults of hatchery and natural origin may explain why the adult release group and anadromous adults assortatively formed pairing combinations on the spawning grounds. Although captively reared adults produced the majority of redds in years they were released in substantial numbers, uncertainty regarding the relative reproductive success of this strategy suggests caution in recommending one strategy over the other. A demographic boost to the naturally spawning population was effected while managing to minimize negative ecological consequences.

Fishing on incoming runs of steelhead might not select against repeat spawners if the period prior to downstream migration was long enough that those fish would not encounter any harvest on that pathway. However, it seems to me that fishing on incoming runs of different species, such as spring chinook could certainly increase the likelihood of of increased harvest of downstream fish and therefore repeat spawners. I guess it would depend on the proportion of spawners that actually survive to migrate downstream and the proportion of those that would be repeat spawners.

I agree with you Dave. It's time for all of us to get involved to do what we can to make positive change. I am as guilty as anyone. Been fishing for many years assuming that paying my license fees is enough to supplement our management programs. What's done is done. We can no longer point fingers at each other. It is time for everyone to work together for the good of our environment and fish and wildlife populations.

Maybe I just dont get it.
If the fish cant make it to the gravel to spawn then = no more fish.
Why do we keep dancing around this????
Get the F--king nets/commercials out and you can have fish spawning.
Control the sports take or close it down and then the fish really have a chance.
But who gets control the WDFW?? Oh well gone forever I guess.
Curious though why did they go to college and get degrees in Fishery Science for ,if only to drive whole river systems into Extinction???

Uh...there's a reason it's called a "Fisheries Degree" and not an "Ecological Sciences Degree", or a "Conservation Biologist Degree"..."fisheries" is about fishing, plain and simple.

WDFW has plenty of ecologists and biologists on staff, too, though not surprisingly their policy ideas don't fit very well with the Department policies, nor would they fit well with most hunters' and fishers' ideas of sound wildlife management.

When I worked at the State, it was a not-so-funny joke that we referred to the WDFW as the "Department of Hunting and Fishing"...

Fish on...

Todd

Skyrise,

Nets haven't been legally targeting HC wild steelhead for years. That's not to say they didn't, or that they did too much for too long, but that can't be undone now. The only fishing targeting those fish these days is illegal fishing, whether it's with nets or hook and line. Why didn't WDFW close it to steelhead net fishing earlier? Because they couldn't, should they have wanted to. If the treaty co-managers thought there were sufficient fish to target for harvest, then they could do so, even if they were wrong. Tribes cannot be stopped from fishing by the state until there is hard evidence (different from emotional ranting evidence provided by sport fishermen) that a fish run is literally up against the ropes of extirpation. That evidence became available, and the tribes stopped netting the wild HC runs.

We won't know for a couple life cycles at least whether the current steelhead rescue efforts are going to succeed. But the agencies and tribes are cooperating to give it the best chance possible.

Sg

Well emotional ranting aside (which only comes from watching total rape of fish runs by the way) why is "nothing is done untill the barn is burning down? just saying !!
oh and we get to watch the same going on over here with puget sound streams !!!!! lets see, kill off hood canal streams. then mover over and kill off puget sound streams. and........coast is next? maybe soutwest streams.
ROLL THE DICE and who's our winner this time ?

If you spent a little more time researching this subject, instead of flapping your gums, you might just be half as smart as you think you are.
Notice that they don't mention over harvest as a factor.
And don't forget about where all those crab went, or do out migrating fish like dead zones?

http://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/fisheries/steelhead/faq.html

Loss of functional habitat – particularly freshwater habitat – is generally believed to present the greatest risk to the state’s wild steelhead populations. In its ESA listing for Puget Sound steelhead, NOAA-Fisheries concluded “habitat is the principal factor limiting the viability of the Puget Sound steelhead DPS (distinct population segment) into the foreseeable future.”

In Puget Sound and other waters around the state, scientists note that water diversions for agriculture, flood control, residential use and hydropower have all reduced the amount of freshwater habitat used by naturally spawning steelhead. Forestry, mining and industrial development have also reduced or degraded habitat.

Steelhead are more vulnerable to these changes, because they spend more time in freshwater than other anadromous species. Unlike salmon, they often spend more than one year in freshwater and spawn in multiple years, depositing their eggs farther up rivers and streams. In the ocean, they also tend to school higher in the water column, making them more vulnerable to climate change or surface temperature changes.

WDFW has limited authority over land-use decisions, but does administer the Hydraulic Project Approval program, which regulates activities on and near state waters that could affect fish life. The department also coordinates habitat-restoration projects conducted by local governments, Regional Fisheries Enhancement Groups and other organizations. The statewide steelhead management plan directs WDFW to emphasize steelhead conservation in all of these programs.

You seem more agenda driven, instead of finding the real problems.
It took about 30 seconds to find the answer, yet you cling to none scientific theories for the decline.
Why is that?

Actually I found numerous citations all saying the same thing, I chose WDFW as a impeachable source.
I challenge you to find any credible data that says the decline of Puget Sound wild steelhead is due to over harvest.

"WDFW as an impeachable source" - Ain't that the truth.

As soon as the illegal and/or unrecorded harvest is counted, as soon as the fisheries, included incidental are actually closed, as soon as the fisheries on salmon are reduced so that the spawners necessary to provide nutrient/productivity to the ecosystem are implented, as soon as all the foodfish species (herring, etc.) are reduced so that steelhead food remains in the ocean, as soon as the harvest of steelhead food on the high seas is reduced, then we can talk about harvest not being a problem.

As was mentioned earlier, if we continually narrow our focus to a single species and act as if they exist in an ecological vacuum, they don't stand a chance.

Funny how the main recovery points favored by sport anglers never show up in any scientific data.

1. Over harvest

2. Predators

3. Commercial bycatch

4. High seas long liners

5. Over exploitation of bait fish

These bullet points come up time and again as reasons for our declining fish runs, yet these same issues never appear in any scientific studies as limiting factors for recovery.
Yet armchair biologists cling fiercely to these non scientific hypothesis as the gospel for fish recovery.
Why is that?