http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/344800_salmon25.html?source=rss

EVERETT -- Few of the Northwest's struggling salmon runs are as close to extinction as the chinook that spawn in the south fork of the Stillaguamish River.

With only 100 to 200 adult fish returning each year, some fish biologists say the population could die off at any time.

To make a last-ditch effort to save the run, local fish experts plan to tap into $4.5 million in salmon recovery money that Snohomish County recently won from the state..... Continued@URL

http://www.komotv.com/news/local/12804897.html

KOMO Seattle Mon, 24 Dec 2007 2:46 PM PST
The Stillaguamish Tribe plans to use about $634,000 to capture 15 to 20 male and female wild returning salmon each fall, collecting eggs and sperm then fertilizing them and letting them hatch and grow into fry at a tribal hatchery in Arlington.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2004090775_websalmonsave24.html?syndication=rss

What is the cost to raise smolt in Wa ? Yes I know overhead $650,000.00 to get 50,000 smolt?

I'm not postive what our exact budget is (I'll find out), but I belive it costs us about $10K to do the same for the Snider project ... and the numbers are about the same for parent adults. That covers everything

Too little, too late?

$634,000, to capture a few of the returns and milk em. What a joke.

Everyone hates bureaucracy, but few will settle for less oversight than bureaucracy provides, and you can't have bureaucracy without the attendant overhead costs. Beyond that, conservation hatchery programs have much higher costs per pound of fish reared than straight production programs. The higher costs are due in large part because the cost efficiency of "economy of scale" are lost, plus the costs of obtaining and handling of broodstock are much higher, presuming you have to hire it done.

Sg

Those numbers aren't that surprising. I was pretty familiar with the Redfish Lake sockeye captive breeding program. 2 million per year to get back anywhere from 6 to 50 adults per year.


Thank you BPA, and the Army Corp of Engineers. Cheap electricity costs more than people realize. But that's a rant for another thread.

VHawk

Sad state of affairs to see this come to crisis status. Perhaps this is the only way things get managed in these times.

At least the tribal folks are attempting to do some good.

DFW Management should be held accountable for the lack of action on thier part. We, the public, entrust our public resources to Staff.
Yet, last year the announcement at the start of the US-Canada Treaty negotiations was to remain at current harvest levels.

If they are serious about it they could take a few hundred million from the casino profits they make and not do their restoration on the taxpayers dime.

Here are the numbers by river

http://www.heraldnet.com/article/20071224/NEWS01/838777999/1059/COMM0618

Very high cost.... and equivocal yield at best.

For this to be a true "conservation" hatchery project, it must yield at the very least 2 recruits for every broodstock fish taken from the wild just to break even. On the surface, most folks just asssume that's a slam dunk. Perhaps, perhaps not.

The real issue that must be considered is the reproductive fitness of those hatchery recruits when they come back as adults. There is nothing I have found in the literature specifically about the reproductive fitness of hatchery salmon derived from wild broodstock, but if the experience with hatchery steelhead is any indicator, then one would expect markedly diminished reproductive fitness in hatchery salmon when they are allowed to spawn naturally in the wild.

My personal belief is that these programs are good for one bolus of artificially-induced abundance for each batch of brood fish taken from the system. As long as you keep mining the depleted run for broodstock and "successfully" produce hatchery returns, everything looks great... but that's just on the surface. If the hatchery recruits turn out to be piss-poor spawners in terms of their reproductive fitness (i.e. will they or won't they eventually produce viable returning adults?), then there is no real mechanism for the population of natural spawners to increase, let alone maintain itself.

The whole "recovery" effort becomes dependent on the continued existence of the hatchery to artificially bolster the numbers of returning fish. It's got a real "feel-good" appeal, but that folks is NOT recovery. That's just dependence on another techno-fix that solves absolutely nothing in terms of genuine fish recovery. What history has shown is that it's a great way to create another useless bureacracy to bring lots of dollars to a privileged local economy at the expense of Joe Q Public.

The best analogy I can think of is DSHS which must continually dole out welfare checks. That's NOT a system promoting financial "recovery" for the poor. For far too many, it's simply a shot in the arm to get them to their next welfare check... and the next.. and the next! A truly successful welfare program should not be measured in terms of how many checks it passes out, but rather the number of recipients that eventually come off the "payroll."

In that sense, the true measure of success for a "conservation" hatchery is how quickly it can work itself out of a job... in other words, recovery happens when the hatchery is no longer needed.

Maybe I'm just getting too cynical in my old age. The future prospects for runs hanging on by a thread are NOT good. For the sake of the fish, I hope I'm wrong... but I doubt it.

Great Lakes sure have no problems with Salmon and Steelhead runs.

What Driftwood said.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

Can ANYONE cite an example where a "conservation" hatchery actually fulfilled its intended purpose? Where a depleted wild native run was restored to some semblance of historic abundance? OK I'll even settle for stabilizing a run to a point where it could sustain itself at current abundance?

I would be so much more encouraged to see even one example where it actually worked.

Any run?

Anywhere?

Anyone?

Amen brotha, amen...

I cant seem to understand that lack of self sufficiency by the tribes. If I ever saw anything publically that even so much as slightly promoted any sort of effort to improve anything in the way of the fisheries that are used to support netting habits, I might feel differently. Now I realize that there are things that media doesn't show or doesn't allow us to see, bla bla bla. But come on. Allowing a run of fish to dwindle to amounts of fifty to two hundred fish per year. If that is so important to your lively hood would there not have been something done along time ago to prevent the possiblity of losing that source of income. Here is a thought. Allow the tribes the one time cost of start up for the farming of "Wild Salmon" that are from the local popluations of fish. That way there is no harm caused by escapement, i.e. Atlantic Salmon. I may be ignorant to the facts that may exist in relation to the costs and possible risk vs. gain by doing something like that. But there has to be a way to fix this for good. Maybe through the education of our youth by funding that is being used to supplement the tribes "loss" of productivity from the netting of the rivers and bays.

Just so nobody thinks I am a completely negative hopeless fatalist on these issues, I do believe these depressed fish populations have a way out of their unfortunate lot, but the solution the salmon REALLY need takes far more discipline than our hyper-consumptive fast-paced me-first society has been willing to buck up.

It really boils down to two things...

1) stop fishing them so damned hard
2) give them access to high quality spawning and rearing habitat.

DONE!

These really are the only two requirements the fish need to bounce back. Everything else we have done in the name of "recovery" is a giant multi-billion dollar crock of $hit. Some of it has been pat-on-the-back "feel-good" kind of $hit, but still $hit nonetheless. Most of it has been the run of the mill "bull" type.

The resilience of these critters to bounce back after all manner of natural catastrophe over the millenia is difficult to fathom. They really are like weeds that over the centuries have proven themselves nearly impossible to eradicate... and yet in the span of 150 years, modern society has managed to do just that.

Damn... we suck!

Agreed fishingphysician,

I use this run of fish all the time as an example. But it really is a perfect example. The Johns Creek run of Chums has managed to be self sufficient despite what the DFW thought would happen. They suspected the run of fish would die out in a four five year time frame since they were going to stop stocking it with hatchery fish. What happened was the exact opposite. They actually thrived and were a pretty nice run. I dont know how it is now as I havent fished it in close to ten years. But I do know that it is still there. Fifteen or so years later. Amazing what can happen when you close the tributary for a harvesting. Provide the adequate rearing quarters. Which pretty much means just leave the damn creek alone. Protect the watershed and what do you know. A healthy run of fish. AMAZING!!!
These fish dont need any of our "expertise." What they need is for us to leave them alone for a while and keep the water that they need clean. That means no more clear cutting on 40 degree bank hillsides, no more dumping the crap that goes into the sewer in the rivers and oceans. No commercial harvesting. And sorry to say it, but closing some rivers and tributaries to ALL fishing for a while. Small price to pay for the future of our passions.

the SF of the Stilly has all the same problems the NF has. unstable soils.
the whole drainage is nothing but sand and clay deposits. throw in some bad logging practices, overfishing, floods, too many developments right on the river banks equals poor survival rates for all in river fish populations.
all the decent runs and holes, drifts --- you name it, are filled in on the lower Stilly. and all of the sediment has come from upriver, either the NF or SF. some say the Stilly was harder hit by sediment than the Toutle was from Mt St Helens.
just hope the habitat projects really do some good.
with the amount of damage done already i fear its gonna take alot more money.
will keep my fingers crossed.

Boy, that would be nice. I forgot how much taxes they have to pay out of their profits to the U.S. Government, does anyone know?