WDFW NEWS RELEASE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
600 Capitol Way North, Olympia, WA 98501-1091
http://wdfw.wa.gov/

February 8, 2012
Contact: Ron Warren, (360) 249-1201

Sol Duc wild steelhead management zone established;
Snider Creek program to end

OLYMPIA - The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) has announced it will end a hatchery steelhead program at Snider Creek next year to establish a wild steelhead management zone in the Sol Duc River.

After next spring, no hatchery steelhead will be released into the Sol Duc River, which will be the first wild steelhead management zone formally established in the state under the department's Statewide Steelhead Management Plan, said Ron Warren, regional fish program manager for WDFW. Snider Creek is a tributary to the Sol Duc River in Clallam County.

Wild management zones, also known as wild stock gene banks, are designed to preserve key populations of wild fish by minimizing interactions with hatchery-produced fish, said Warren. Research has shown that hatchery fish are often less genetically diverse and can impact wild stocks through interbreeding or competition for food or habitat.

WDFW is also looking to identify other streams that could be candidates for wild management zones, said Warren. That effort includes working with an advisory group to identify specific streams in the Puget Sound region.

"Establishing wild management zones is part of a broad effort aimed at modifying our hatchery programs to be compatible with conservation and recovery of naturally spawning salmon and steelhead populations," Warren said. "Shifting hatchery steelhead production away from the Sol Duc River - where we have one of the largest wild steelhead populations in the state - is an important step in that effort."

Changes designed to support naturally spawning salmon and steelhead populations are driven by plans and policies adopted by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, such as the Statewide Steelhead Management Plan and the Hatchery and Fishery Reform policy, Warren said.

The Statewide Steelhead Management Plan is available on the department's website at http://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/fisheries/steelhead/ , while the commission's hatchery and fishery reform policy is available at http://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/policies/c3619.html .

While the hatchery program will no longer take place at Snider Creek, WDFW is working with stakeholders to re-establish a similar effort in the Bogachiel or Calawah rivers, where the department already releases hatchery steelhead, said Warren.

The program will end next spring, when 25,000 winter steelhead smolts are released into the Sol Duc River, Warren said. Last year, WDFW also discontinued its summer steelhead program on the Sol Duc River, after releasing 20,000 smolts.

Before making that decision, WDFW conducted three public meetings and reviewed about 400 public comments on the future of the Snider Creek program.

While fewer and fewer hatchery steelhead will be returning to the Sol Duc River in the coming years, anglers will continue to have opportunities to fish for salmon and other game fish, as well as retain one wild steelhead per license year on the river, said Warren.

The Snider Creek program was created in 1986 as a joint project with the Olympic Peninsula Guides' Association to increase fishing opportunities for steelhead on the Sol Duc River. The program is unlike most other hatchery efforts in that it produces offspring from wild steelhead rather than hatchery fish.



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Booooo.Good luck,
SZ

So let me if I have this right.....
1.There is no evidence that Snyder fish are helping or hurting the "native" run fish
2. The Indian netters do not / are not required to count Snyder fish that they catch?
3.This program was started in 1986 as a result of petioning of local guides to increase fishing oppertunities on the Sol Duc?
4. Provides oppertunities for anglers to catch larger fish than a standard hatchery brat helping to support the local economy by drawing angler to the area?
5. Some fisherman love them, some absolutely hate them for what they might be doing to the native fish
6. originate from native stock from this river but are reared in ponds instead of natually in the river?
I'm so confused!

Hey how are ya

The numbers of wild fish will plmmit. They alone can't withstand the pressure they will recieve, Look at the Queets, Excellent habitat, Heavy netting, Dewindling fish. You see the pattern, Ready to Start letting all have slot machines, Or see if they are willing to trade fishing for exlusive slots. If not let every tom, dick and harry build a casino and have all gaming op's.Let the 600 million of slot wealth be spread around and taxed. I think the casino Tribes would talk...... With netting and no suplimentation you can see the writing on the wall....

They would stand a lot better chance if they would just make the river C&R.

C&R thats a joke, the damage is done to some that can't be fixed. the last two trips on the Nooch we saw 3 fish either upside down on the bottom or rolling down the river, One was in a back eddy. I looked down and saw a snow white belly. Reached down and scopped her with the net, She was still breathing, We revived her for almost 5 min until the bubbles quite coming out of her gills and she could right herself. She swam off good, If some would spend the time to revive them abit better then C&R might be a thing we can support. But otherwise, Handling and poor care will do no better then bonking...

While I have seen the same thing and it is sad, there is the obvious......exactly 100% of bonked fish don't make it.

I don't get it.
If I catch a wild fish and dip it in the water of a hatchery, does that change the DNA of that fish to be a Hatchery fish?

If I catch a mating pair of wild fish, co-fertilizer their eggs and raise the off spring in a hatchery, does that change the DNA of those wild stock fish to Hatchery fish?

When those wild, hatchery raised fish return to spawn, is their DNA altered from what it would have been had the two fish above never been caught?

When a Snider Creek, Hatchery raised fish returns to the river and spawns, is there, via DNA, behavior, visible attributes ,...anything, ANY way to tell the fry of a returning Snider Creek fish from a wild fish?

Did catching and hatchery raising the wild fish increase the return of fish with native, wild genes to the river to support the run?

Did having more fish in the river reduce the pressure on the wild fish?

Did having more fish in the river increase revenue to the OP?

I find the statement that "the Sol Duc has one of the best wild fish runs anywhere so we need to protect it" rather amazing. That in it's self says the program is working. Prove to me that the reason the Sol Duc has such a good wild run has nothing to do with the Snider Creek program.
I don't like common hatchery fish, but these are wild fish. Tell me why this is bad program.

Here is a picture of a Snider Creek hen I caught with Mike Z last Saturday. She fought harder than any fish I have ever caught. She is back in the river now.

I drove 1000 miles on that trip to catch that fish and spend my Oregon money in Washington.
I paid 89 dollars in license fees, to fish 5 days in Washington with the goal of catching that fish.
I spent over 1000 dollars in Washington, to fish Washington this last year.

Here is a picture of $1000 dollar fish.


If the Snider program goes down, I will probably not come back.

Teedub

Teedub, just google up the science.

No, it doesn't change the DNA, it changes its phenotypic behavior.

If you really won't drive 1000 miles without being able to bonk a fish from the Sol Duc, then there are plenty of streams in your area to bonk fish. There are also plenty of streams on the OP with hatchery fish that are open right now. Have at it.

Fish on...

Todd

Todd,
Pretty sure he said he released that hen? Maybe I just read it wrong.

Released a hatchery fish, and won't drive here without the chance to do so again? Really?

Fish on...

Todd

I don't go to the OP to bonk fish. Plenty of bonkable cookie cutters around here. :-)

Mostly I am curious. Tell me why is is a bad thing. I see the program as working, but I guess I don't know anything about the finite details. The Snider fish that I have caught didn't seem any different than the wild fish I caught, in fact they were more aggressive.

As far as science, from what I read, there is little science and a lot of speculation. I read "Review of the Snider Creek Steelhead Program" by WDFW. The document clearly states that the count metrics may be, and probably are inaccurate due to the location of the clip. Near the end of the paper, it lists the goals and it shows that they are mostly met, or at least the net effect was beneficial to the river as far as the metric can tell. The is a LOT of "we don't really know this and we really can't ascertain that".
Where is a better document?

What I see is people classifying the Snider brooder fish with other hatchery fish with no differentiation. I concur that true hatchery fish have no place on the Sol Duc.

If the program is truly a bad thing, then it should go. That hasn't been proven to me yet.

Tell me more.

Another cop out by our state. It's not really about the fish, it's about money and special interests.

I bet they'd make their "science" fit if the Snider Creek program was run by gays and lesbos.

Good one large edward..... intelligent and thought inspireing....

Teedub, there's another whole thread on this with the full discussion, but in a nutshell:

There is no monitoring of the Snider Creek program at all, other than harvest data. There is no monitoring of what the program's contribution is to wild fish, what reduction (or not) of fitness occurs due to the Snider fish spawning in the wild, or what the effects of Snider program smolts competing with wild fish may be.

Only a handful of broodstock programs have actually had these things measured.

In every one...every single one, 100%...the results show that the wild fish would be more numerous and have higher reproductive fitness if they had never been mined for eggs and sperm to make hatchery fish.

In every one.

Ask anyone that works on any broodstock program anywhere and they will acknowledge this, but have anecdotal evidence that "their" program is the "one" that actually does work...without ever measuring any of the actual metrics that matter.

This happens every single time, with programs in B.C., Washington, and Oregon...they acknowledge that every single time it has actually been measured, it fails to do as well as leaving the fish alone...for free, I might add...would do without the program.

They always think "theirs" works.

While it's not impossible to think that "theirs" might be the only one that actually does work, it's damned unlikely.

Fish on...

Todd

It really doesn't seem all that confusing.

A Snider fish is a hatchery fish with wild parent. While they may be better bananas, they are still not wild.

If a river is to be managed in the best interest of wild fish, killing wild fish to make hatchery fish is obviously more harmful than leaving them the [Bleeeeep!] alone to let them do what they have been doing for thousands of years without our "help."

It is a simple question of whether we will do what is truly best for the wild fish, or if we will choose an alternative that factors in other interests.

While I am sad to see recreational fishing opportunities continue to shrink, these types of seemingly "drastic" actions that put conservation above recreation are needed if wild fish are to be saved.

And...the program isn't being cancelled (as it should be), it's being moved to the Bogachiel River to satisfy the HSRG requirements to have Wild Fish Management Zones, and the Sol Duc is the easiest one to move the wild fish from and to another stream.

Here's the thread: http://www.piscatorialpursuits.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/739219/1.html

Fish on...

Todd

It will be interesting to see , hope it works. What is the plan for determining the results, wier to count fish on the Solduc?