They're moving the hatchery fish off the Sol Duc, so there will be no need to count them there...I suspect there won't be any way to count them on the Bogachiel, though, either, nor any other type of monitoring that has been lacking on the Sol Duc.

Fish on...

Todd

I haven't seen any plan or indication of a plan to do any monitoring of the program when it's moved to the Bogie. Lack of intent to monitor pretty much defines it as a feel good program, meaning we will continue to have the program because people feel good about it.

Sg

"Feel good" is the predominant metric that comes out in favor of these programs wherever they may be...measurable metrics, if they ever bother to measure beyond "feel good" (which they almost never do), usually come out against the viability of the program.

And when I say "usually"...I mean "always, every time".

Fish on...

Todd

Slightly confused on this brood stock thing as well so let me check the math.

1) A caught and killed returning "Brood Stock" Steelhead = zero smolts

2) A caught and released or escaped Brood Stock Steelhead= smolts but bad strain either by breading with wild fish naturally or return to hatchery to be spawned.

3) The taking of that Wild Fish and then turning it into a hatchery fish= smolts that will return for kill= zero smolt or bad strain.

4) An escaped or caught and released "correctly" as in (your not a total Tool) "wild" Steelhead/ that spawns with another wild Steelhead=spawning quality smolts and then adult returning to the ocean after spawn hopefully to spawn several times after that.

How is taking wild fish for brood stock good for Steelhead numbers again I'm confused?

Number (1) scenario is a no brain, dead fish. If number (2) and (3) are correct then we are not only contaminating the river but also killing its future by using a wild fish to do that with. (4) seems like the best bet for Steelhead and future of Steelhead.

I'm not against brood-stock at this point and no disrespect to the great people who work on this Snider program I'm just a bit confused as to how it works for the future of Steelhead.

(3) studies show that when said broodstock steelie spawns with wild parents, the amount of bad decreases, and when that progeny spawns with wild, it lessens even more

In a perfect world, I would say no to this ... but knowing the social issues surrounding these fisheries and the dozens of poached fish as it is every week-end, the amount of poaching will only increase with them not available and I believe that number will outweigh what is being used in the program ... simple math

I think the "bad strain" part is one of the parts that is uncertain. The genes are coming straight from wild fish. The question is what effect, if any, the hatchery raising process has on the genes getting passed on from Snider fish.

The potential problem as I understand it is that a greater proportion of the "less fit" genes are the ones surviving the hatchery process to head out to sea and return as Snider fish, whereas the "more fit" genes survive the wild spawning environment.

Not the case, there will be increased monitoring in the future ... both sides have asked for that.

It really boils down to making a value judgment here:

If we're going to have hatchery fish to harvest, wouldn't it be better to have hatchery fish that, if they escape to spawn, aren't so bad for the wild fish as the regular hatchery fish would be?

Everyone will have to make their own value judgment on that...I, for one, could care less about having steelhead to harvest after the bananas are done, so any bad effect on the wild fish is too much for my liking.

They may not be as bad as Chambers fish spawning with wild fish, but they're a damn sight away from wild fish spawning with each other.

The 'dream' part is that they are somehow cheating Mother Nature by "making" more "wild fish" than would be made if you just left the fish alone...that's the part that is a 100% failure every time it's been measured, and "works" if you ask anyone involved in a program that has never had it measured.

Fish on...

Todd

If true, then after 25 years ... we'd expect to see some bad stuff in the early returns on the Duc. Yet, after 25 years of the program, the other area rivers have taken a nosedive in their January returns and the 'Duc is now at least stable or perhaps stronger from what observations from those with the most contact with the fish. Where have you spent your last two Jan trips out here fishing Todd ... yep, the 'Duc, because that is where the best fishing existed.

It's the only place I've ever fished out there in January.

The lack, except for strays, of putting half a million Chambers Creek fish in there might have something to do with it, don't you think?

Without actually measuring it there's no way to know the difference between having the program or not...and you'd think that would be a no brainer if you're going to be taking wild fish out of the river and making hatchery fish out of them.

Leastwise, I think it's a no brainer that you should actually measure it before calling it a "success"...and until it's been measured, the best measure out there is the unanimous failing grade that every other broodstock program has ever received so far as "creating wild fish" goes.

Fish on...

Todd

Well, first off ... they don't plant half a million, so check your numbers if you want to throw those around. The Hoh has fared way better for Jan numbers than the Bogey and Calawah and it gets the same plants with zero collection facilities ... so if you're trying to link the demise of the early fish to the Chambers fish themselves, then you would expect it to be worse in a river that has no collection facilties for them ... there are as many strays in Duc and returning fish in the Hoh as don't end up in the trap in the Bogey or Calawah, so that one holds as much water as a self-bailing raft.

Now perhaps if you wish to factor in what peeps do the runs because of the Chambers fish presence, then yes ... it's a big factor, but immeasurable. But if we can't officially measure it, then it doesn't count according to what you have written so many times.

All I see the removal of the Snider Creek program is yet another WIN for the tribes.

Less hatchery and more wild fish to die in the nets.

Thanks guys. You ROCK!

Dood...if they move the program over to the Bogachiel, you know the hatchery fish it produces will still have to swim thru the nets on the Quillayute, right?

Fish on...

Todd

Lets dream a little, wiers on the Sol Duc, Bogi, and Calawa and no nets in the Quilliut.......Give the natives their fish right out of the traps at the wiers.......fifty/fifty after escapement #'s needed. No more downriver gilled fish thrown on the bank and wasted...........Might work in a perfect world but a guy can dream. Since #'s seem to hold up every year on the brood stock, there is a small chance its good so I hope they really do start monitering this program, and why does oregon have such good steelhead fishing, could the answer be brood stock programs....something to think about

Prob with that scenario is tribe won't agree to it because they can't figure out even amongst themselves how they would divvy it up ...

NW Panhandler -
Why not go the rest of the way and divide the non-treaty share among the sport fishers as well?

As a group we would be as likely as the tribe in agreeing to such a scheme; though it is always nice to dream.

tight lines
curt

I did say dream! I'm fully aware it will never happen as far as the tribes go but we all live with the 50/50 thing that never seems to happen. I watched one of our comanagers throw a dark fish on the bank from the net right below the mouth of the Sol Duc..........tossed it up there and said throw back.....that fish had made it up the river, spawned and was going back to sea and finished its trip dead on the bank as fertilizer..........succccccs

Perhaps the brood stock program is being scuddled because it works? If it works, it provides a means of restocking the rivers with strong fish, and that means fewer grants for study, enhancement, research, blah, blah, blah.......so an answer is not desired, because it ends a money producing crisis, that goes on and on and on......for how many years now?
When they're nearly gone, some will still be defending the ridiculous idea that man can't improve on nature. If that were the case, Jerry wouldn't have knees, Dan wouldn't have insulin, I wouldn't have a hip, etc. And you think we can't make a better producing fish run? Get real.

Both sides have good points here.
While I dont think man can create a better fish than ma' nature can, I don't think that was the intent of the guides association when they started this program. Wasnt it a program intended to increase the number of harvestable fish in the system...and to do it with the best stock available........ which is fish native to the system? I would say that the program was a success based on those merits. While there is no data saying the program has been detrimental to the native stock in the Sol Duc, Todd is right that there has not been much/any effort to monitor the effects of the program and collect/analyze genetic data, and in almost every case it has been studied, putting fish into a hatchery has detrimental genetic effects to the natural population.
It may be that the Sol Duc and its steelhead are heatlhy enough to absorb the impacts of the Snider program. Observations from people on the water almost every day seem to indicate plenty of Snider fish around, and the Quillayute system continues to hold its own on escapement, despite mankinds best attempts at whacking on them.

Hatcheries and the fish produced in them don't do a good/cost effective job replacing wild stocks in good habitat; they do, in most cases and average survival rates, provide a considerable amount of fish for harvest or return.
What is the first tool that is utilized by virtually all management agencies to attempt to recover an endangered stock????
Yep, its a hatchery.

Modern civilized society and its associated footprint on the landscape will continue to make the hatchery the main tool used to provide harvestable or returning fish, and in cases of endangered runs of fish, enhance them before they are extirpated. Society has made big choices in Puget Sound and the West Coast in general, to the detriment of most native fish populations.

Since the Sol Duc remains some of the best, most productive habitat on the coast, it is hard to argue with the WSMZ concept that WDFW adopted. It will be interesting to see what happens if the program is started in the Bogey.

And herein lies the great fallacy. Hatcheries are justified, time and time again, as a means of "recovering" threatened or endangered stocks. The reality is that hatcheries essentially introduce new, competing stocks that further hamper the recovery process for the stock they attempt to recover by altering the gene pool and reducing spawning productivity. The science on this issue seems clear: Unless we can effectively remove the vast majority of a hatchery run from a system before they have an opportunity to spawn with the native stock, hatchery fish are a detriment to very stocks they were implemented to recover. Indeed, the wild fish we claim to be protecting have ended up supplementing the harvestable catch, which I believe is very nearly the opposite of what we have advertised as the purpose of hatcheries.

Perhaps its time to be more honest about what hatcheries really do, which is not all bad, from the perspective of anyone who likes or depends on catching fish. As Fish-Culture said, hatcheries produce harvestable fish where few or none would exist otherwise. For sportsmen, that creates fishing opportunity. For commercial fishermen, that provides a livelihood. For a constantly growing population of hungry consumers, that brings fish to market. Given the current state of the vast majority of salmon and steelhead spawning habitat, hatcheries have become essential to meeting these demands.

Once we're clear on why we need hatcheries, ideally, we should be able to find better ways to operate hatcheries and minimize their impacts on their host environments. But who's going to pay for hatchery reform, you ask? Good question, but it would be very encouraging to at least see new hatcheries being built with that goal in mind. Does anybody know if any lessons learned from older hatcheries were applied to the design for the new hatchery on the Elwha?

When presented the notion that Mother Nature will do a better job of recovering a wild fish run than humans could ever do, some of us are quick to point out a few of mankind's great achievements, claiming those as evidence that we can, in fact, outshine Mother Nature. The fallacy here is that the things mankind has created are artificial, and in most cases will, sooner or later, end up a further detriment to the natural environment (ever seen pictures of the gyre of floating garbage, twice the size of Texas, in the middle of the Pacific?). Mother Nature gave us a perfect, balanced habitat that provided everything we needed to survive. When given an honest chance (an all too rare occurrence), natural environments have proved to be amazingly resilient. There would seem to be little question that "Mother" knows best when it comes to all things natural.

As regards Snyder Creek (sorry for taking so long to get here), it seems to have been the closest thing to a successful broodstock program that we have seen to date, and while I have doubts about the overall impact on the wild fish, I think it's a shame that the results weren't mearsured more effectively in the current location before a decision was made to move a similar program to another system. Hopefully, the new program, if it is implemented, will be monitored closely to see if it has merit as a recovery tool. We could use some good news in that arena.