i haven't heard of what you describe on the olympic peninsula. they do run a brood stock hatchery program on the sol duc using wild fish caught on hook and line for the brood stock at the hatchery. talking with biologists, it looks like the return rate from plants is much lower with this specific project than the typical chambers creek hatchery plant.
there's been a lot of talk bad-mouthing WDFW in this discussion, but there's one really good thing about the department and that's the fact that anyone can call the people in charge and ask them specific questions about these issues. a note when you call a biologist or decision maker at WDFW... don't rant and rave, behave like a civil human being and you'll get more information. these people get the ranting and raving from all sides, and i find when i talk to them without the ranting and raving, a lot more information gets talked about. i've talked to lots of biologists in wdfw, and while we have differences of opinion, i've always been able to get answers to my questions, even if i didn't agree with the answer or the way things are being managed. when bashing wdfw, remember that they have limited funding, and get severe pressure from legislators that control that funding. it's easy to bash, but if more people spent some time making some fact-finding phone calls, attending commission meetings or pre-season seasons setting proccesses such as north of falcon i believe that some change can be made. yes, it's slower than most of us want, but those who've been involved in battles know that while one rarely gets exactly what they want, one can see the department move towards the direction some of us wish (such as the steelhead issue). remember, that wdfw is not the only player in our steelhead runs on the upper columbia and closures and non-openers are likely partly the blame of nmfs, who would have to grant a permit for c&r fishing or selective fishing on hatchery fish. call the regional biologist or someone involved with the esa issues in the upper columbia... i think you'll get more factual information than on the internet. getting to know regional biologists (even if just on the phone) will be a positive. chris bellows www.fly-fishing-neahbay.com ----- Original Message ----- From: "Ray" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, March 07, 2002 3:14 PM Subject: methow closer > I do not pretend to know anything about this subject, I just post questions > as they come to mind and here it goes again. In reply to the 2 responses > regarding the old old dams & ESA classifying all Steelhead as endangered > (Methow River) because of the mixing of wild & hatchery when they net them > at the dam and transport them to down stream tributaries. > > Isn't it still a waste of money & effort if the survival rate & reproduction > rate is a major negative factor to any wild or man made run in a > river/stream? If I interpreted the BC study correctly unless you figure out > some way to help the spawning of native steelhead naturally you are > condemning all runs to eventual extinction and all that will be left is > yearly plants with an occasional previous years returning plant. > > Why not try what they do on the Olympic Peninsula and when someone catches a > wild hen pen it and then a volunteer or game dept. official moves it to > another stream and pens it again until it is acculturates to that stream > then let it breed with a wild male naturally or has this also been a > failure? > > They have special programs that have been extremely successful in the > breeding of bass. I know it is a different species all together with > different problems but what they do is have one game dept official on call > 24 hours a day 7 days a week and when some one catches a bass that meets the > requirements they will drive with a special holding tank to any place in > Texas and retrieve that bass so they can bring it to a designated hatchery > and breed it plus study it. Maybe we could do that here with volunteers and > transport steelhead hens to other streams for breeding. as you know 1 male > can breed with several females. > > Just a thought and I am sure there are flaws in it. > > Thank you, > Ray :-) > >
