It still gets back to the debate about defining the word "wild". They
restock, often, depleted runs of "wild" fish with as genetically pure
strains as they can, and it often works, if inviromental conditions are
good, and limited or NO NETTING!
There is no question in my mind, that the Snohomish System, or other
systems, would still have a VIABLE FISHERY if hatchery production were kept
up. The good 'ol days for this angler, were the days of good hatchery
returns of summer-run steelhead....incredible fighters, lots of anglers out
fishing for them and big healthy fish. I cannot believe, with modern,
scientific techniques, that a very healthy hatchery fish cannot be
produced....look at the triploids. BUT, there are those that cannot stand
other anglers out in mass and for other "not in my backyard" reasons. Many
of those small runs of native fish (fish determined to have been here ions
ago) will never produce a fishery...Look at the summer-run steelhead fishing
now...never will produce a decent fishery without a viable, hatchery
program. And that is the point that needs to be addressed. Do we want fish
to return, or be in any waters to produce a fishery for us anglers? Or do
we want to bring a distant fish back, without a fishery, for the sake of
rectifying invironmental conditions we probably, as man, played a part in
changing and depleted a resource? In my opinion, when push comes to shove,
and the God Almighty dollar is at stake,(ie) loss of jobs, higher cost of
energy etc., we won't do what it takes. Do we want to "fish, or cut bait,"
as the joke goes. Jere
----- Original Message -----
From: "Dan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2001 10:54 AM
Subject: Salmon hatcheries can deplete wild stocks
> He is a recent article in Science News regarding a decades long debate
about
> hatchery salmon impact on wild stocks of salmon. Although the article
> specifically cites chinook populations, I think the same argument holds
true
> for wild steelhead stocks decline in rivers w/ hatchery steelhead
> competition. Thought it would be of some interest and alarm.
>
> Dan
>
>
>
>
> Week of June 2, 2001; Vol. 159, No. 22
>
> Salmon hatcheries can deplete wild stocks
> Janet Raloff
>
> Each year, hatcheries release millions of chinook into the Columbia River
> system in a bid by state game managers to save wild stocks of this salmon.
> The fish there is so beleaguered that many of its populations, threatened
> with extinction, are protected under the Endangered Species Act. A new
study
> now offers evidence that hatchery fish may be hastening the wild stocks'
> demise.
>
> Phillip S. Levin and his colleagues with the National Marine Fisheries
> Service (NMFS) in Seattle analyzed chinook-population data spanning the
past
> quarter century for the Snake River, which feeds into the Columbia. Some
18
> months after the fall spawning of chinook, a river of smolts heads for the
> ocean, where the young fish will spend the next 4 or more years. The
Seattle
> scientists compared releases of hatchery-reared smolts with data on the
> number of returning wild adults.
>
> The team also noted fluctuations in food available for the smolts once
they
> reach the ocean. Measures of the local oysters' plumpness indicate
> ocean-food resources. Work by others, Levin explains, has shown that this
> index reflects a year's food availability "all the way up the food chain."
>
> Oyster data revealed that for waters around the mouth of the Columbia,
none
> of the past 25 years has provided a feast. All the years had food supplies
> in the average or poor range. Poor years coincided with El Ni�o
> events-periods of climatic perturbations fostered by unusual warmth in
large
> areas of the Pacific Ocean.
>
> Populations of wild adults that had struck out for the ocean when
near-shore
> food supplies were low had high rates of mortality. This mortality was
> aggravated, Levin's team found, when large numbers of hatchery smolts had
> entered the ocean with the wild fish.
>
> In lean years, the more hatchery chinook released, the higher the
mortality
> of wild stocks from that year's smolts. In contrast, the NMFS scientists
> detected no adverse effect of hatchery releases on wild smolts entering
the
> Pacific in years with normal food supplies.
>
> Levin notes, however, that El Ni�os are occurring at greater frequency in
> recent decades than previously, and global warming may also heat the
> Pacific. Consequently, the conditions now contributing to poor food
> availability in near-shore areas may become the norm in future decades, he
> cautions.
>
> Levin's group reports its findings in the June 7 Proceedings of the Royal
> Society B.
>
> The widely varying year-to-year numbers of chinook released by Snake River
> hatcheries made the new analysis possible, Levin explains. The release
> totals trace to political decisions, he notes, not to estimates of the
> environment's capacity to support salmon.
>
> Today, Columbia River chinook adult stocks are so depleted that the
> northwest states permit little fishing of them. Yet, thanks to hatcheries,
> "there are more juvenile fish coming down the Columbia River than there
have
> ever been," notes Ray Hilborn, a population ecologist at the University of
> Washington in Seattle. Moreover, he notes hatchery-reared smolts, owing to
> their coddling, tend to enter the river bigger than their wild
brethren-with
> bigger appetites. What's happening, he says, is that hatchery fish are
> replacing wild salmon.
>
> That's not what was supposed to happen, says Jim Lichatowich, a consulting
> salmon biologist in Oregon. "The Endangered Species Act says that [wild
> populations] have to be sustainable in their natural environment," he
> explains. The act also seeks to preserve local wild populations, not to
> replace them with hatchery-reared emigrants.
>
> The new report illustrates the flawed logic in attempting "to overcome
> declining wild populations by filling the system to overcapacity with
> hatchery fish," Lichatowich argues.
>
> Indeed, until this report by Levin's team, discussions of the
environment's
> carrying capacity for wild chinook focused on competition for food in
> rivers, adds Michael Schiewe, director of fish ecology for NMFS in
Seattle.
> "Most people thought that in the ocean there'd be no problem," he says-its
> resources seemed limitless.
>
> This is just one more piece of evidence "making it abundantly clear the
> ocean is not unlimited," says Brian Riddell of the Canadian Department of
> Fisheries and Oceans' Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, British
> Columbia.
>
> The bottom line, Lichatowich says, is that over their 125-year history,
> salmon hatcheries have shown that "they cannot maintain the supply of
salmon
> in the face of shrinking habitat." Though overfishing contributed to the
> initial depletion of chinook, he says, "what's keeping the salmon
> populations low right now is habitat"-rivers cut off by dams, drained
> periodically by irrigators, and contaminated with pollutants.
>
>
>
> References:
>
> Levin, P.S., R.W. Zabel, and J.G. Williams. 2001. The road to extinction
is
> paved with good intentions: Negative association of fish hatcheries with
> threatened salmon. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B 268(June
> 7):1153.
>
> Further Readings:
>
> Brodeur, R.D., ... and M.H. Schiewe. 2000. A cooordinated research plan
for
> estuarine and ocean research on Pacific salmon. Fisheries 25(May):7.
>
> Columbia and Snake Rivers Campaign. 2001. Broad coalition sues Feds over
> salmon. May 3. Available at
> http://www.wildsalmon.org/SOS-site/info/viewitem.cfm?ArticleID=107.
>
> Hilborn, R., and C. Coronado. 1999. Changes in ocean survival of Coho and
> Chinook salmon in the Pacific Northwest. Idaho Farm Bureau News. May/June.
> Available at http://www.bluefish.org/oceansur.htm.
>
> Hilborn, R. 1992. Hatcheries and the future of salmon in the Northwest.
> Fisheries 17(January-February):5.
>
> Raloff, J. 2000. Salmon puzzle: Why did males turn female? Science News
> 158(Dec. 23&30):404. Available at
> http://www.sciencenews.org/20001223/fob2.asp.
>
> Sources:
>
> Ray Hilborn
> Recreational Fisheries Management
> School of Fisheries WH-10
> University of Washington
> Seattle, WA 98195
>
> Brian Riddell
> Department of Fisheries and Oceans
> Pacific Biological Station
> Nanaimo, BC V9R 5K6
> Canada
>
> Michael Schiewe
> 2725 Montlake Boulevard East
> Seattle, WA 98112
>
>
>
