Salmon hatchery's

[gfisher2003]

i recently was talking to someone about the salmon hatchery's and how much he thought they benefited the environment and ecosystem as well as the anglers who fish for them he gave me a point that i had never heard before but actually made a lot of sense:
he said that the hatchery's bred fish that were not as well suited to being in the wild as wild fish and that the hatchery fish were genetically weaker than the wild fish so when they accidentally mate they would make the gene pool a bit weaker
his last point was that hatchery's will sometimes give entire populations sicknesses and still release them which make the wild fish sick as well, he gave me an example for that, the Alsea river coho. back in the 1990's i think they had a coho hatchery on the Alsea which accidentally put a disease in all of there fish yet still released them out into the river killing the wild population as well when that run came back in they found that only 10 coho had spawned that year and so they removed the hatchery, he used that example to point out that coho have been thriving in the Alsea even with no stocking them, and monitoring there population

so my question to all of you is did i miss some data, do you agree with his analysis of Oregon's fish hatchery's and what do you, the fisherman who probably know quite a lot about the ecosystem think would be a better way to take care of the salmonid population's in oregon

 

[killigan]

I'm not properly qualified to answer your question. I do know that it's a hot topic in Washington state, and some hatchery programs have been stopped because of it.

 

[troutdude]

That fellows theory, about the Alsea Ho runs, might also apply to the Siletz basin too. In the mid-80's, the Ho's were wall to wall--and stacked up--below the deadline, to the Rock Creek Hatchery. But mysteriously that facility; suddenly shut down. Plus it was then illegal, for any Salmon fishing (not even any C & R; if memory serves me). So MAYBE it too was killed OFF, buy an introduced disease? <nice work getting our OFF moniker there, eh...LOL>

If stream habitats where enhanced, barriers removed--or bypassed, and riparian zones protected (and beefed up, when/where needed, and polluntants better controlled / limited--I'd suspect that most species would do fine; on their own). But mankind has deluded themselves into thinking that, they know better than our Creator. So they continue to do stupid stuff. Most of which is fruitless at best--and counter productive, and even DESTRUCTIVE--at the other end of that continuum.

As a 6th generation Oregon; I eagerly await other commentary. I love my home state! And here's a brand new song, about my favorite place.

 

[DrTheopolis]

Double edged sword, really.. With hatchery plants, it gives us fish to catch, while releasing wild fish. Other side of the coin, it could dilute the gen pool and maybe harbor diseases.

I personally believe (with absolutely zero data to back it up) that hatchery fish interbreeding with wild fish, or among themselves isn't as big a problem as some believe (although might compete for gravel and food). It seems the strongest (if any) will survive. If they can compete with the native stocks, maybe they'll be just fine.

The Upper Willamette coho run is a long-defunct hatchery run, and they're not dying of disease, and seem to reproduce just fine.

But overall, wild fish are always better. But our current state of wild fish doesn't allow much harvest in most fisheries.

 

[TheKnigit]

But overall, wild fish are always better. But our current state of wild fish doesn't allow much harvest in most fisheries.

I think that is an important point from the doctor.

Personally I think a lot of it depends on the fish hatchery. It seems like every year I hear about some sort of disease, or mismanagement, or a poor gene pool somewhere along the Columbia. However, I never seem to hear anything in places like the Coos STEP program other than we had another great return, or we just released X number of fish with a bunch of zeros after it.

I think the Columbia tends to be a battle ground area for fish management between all the various groups who harvest (gill netters, sportsman, tribal, etc.) which puts a lot of pressure on the existing hatcheries to produce. There are a lot of eyes watching how those hatcheries are run, and I feel like some of them are just waiting for the next screw up. I think this takes some of the heat off of the other hatcheries/programs around the state and allows them a little bit more freedom to actually concentrate on producing fish, while not having to deal with the politics of it.

As for the argument of wild fish stock being tainted by interbreeding...I tend to agree with the Doctor, but I also have zero data and even less qualification to back it up. I have read several articles and studies that certainly suggests that is the case. Which in a way kind of makes sense, depending on how the hatchery raises their fish. However, I have also found several articles that says that it only takes 1 generation for the fish to adapt and revert to the characteristics of a native salmon. Of course now that I have made that statement, I am sure that I won't be able to find any of those articles ever again

 

[Irishrover]

There have been hatcheries here in Oregon since 1877. They are important to Salmon recovery especially on rivers where the runs have been wiped out like the Umatilla. The Umatilla Indians started a hatchery program on that river and brought the fish back. They now have both water and salmon back in the Umatilla River. It's a matter of balance. When Oregon was settled there were millions of salmon and few people. Now there are millions of people and fewer fish. We need a combination of habitat rehabilitation (like what has occurred on the upper Sandy River and the Salmon River) coupled with wise hatchery management and protection for wild ESL salmon. That was a good question to be asking.

 

[Hooked Up]

Some good points being made. I agree its important to keep hatchery and wild fish from mating. One reason I think hatcheries are important, with no proof to back it up, is safety in numbers migrating to and from tributaries and in the ocean. Kind of like a herd of zebra, the weaker are the ones are most likely to be eaten.

 

[Admin]

[h=1]Baughman: It’s time for fish hatcheries to call it a day (column)[/h] “As a matter of pure scientific fact, which any sincere naturalist will confirm … hatcheries have been found out to be merely rackets.” — Zane Grey, in a letter to the News-Review, Roseburg, Oregon, 1938


Forty years ago, I wrote a story about hatchery-raised steelhead for Sports Illustrated. Then as now, dams and logging create silted-up spawning beds and blocked small streams. Salmon and trout died because the water temperatures were driven to intolerable heights, though so-called “trash fish” thrived.

In 1960, the manufacture of fish-meal pellets as feed made it possible for hatcheries to grow tens of millions of fingerlings and smolts for release into creeks and rivers, presumably to compensate for depleted runs of wild salmon and steelhead. There were spectacular numerical successes at first, including on my home river, Oregon’s justly famed North Umpqua, with its 30 miles of fly-fishing-only water.

In the mid-1960s, Umpqua summer steelhead runs averaged between 2,000 and 3,000 fish, and by the early ’70s, thanks to hatchery-bred smolts, summer runs had increased to more than 15,000 fish. But those increases have long since disappeared, as have short-lived gains in many other rivers.

People whose livelihoods depend upon building and sustaining hatcheries continue to argue for their importance, but the years of genetic analysis conducted since 1976 reach troubling conclusions. At all stages of life, from fresh water out to the ocean and back, hatchery fish compete with wild fish for space and food, to the clear detriment of the wild fish. Studies have conclusively proved that even when hatchery steelhead survive to spawn in the wild, their offspring have little success at reproducing.

Then there’s fish behavior. Through half a century of fly-fishing the North Umpqua, I’ve seen hundreds of both wild and hatchery steelhead up close. Wild fish tend to fight with the remarkable strength developed through their difficult natural lives. Hatched in streams, they face a vigorous struggle from the very beginning. Less than an inch long when they first emerge from gravel, they must find food and escape the predation of other fish, birds and mammals. When their hatchery cousins survive to be hooked and landed — and they’re easily identifiable by either clipped fins or hatchery-induced deformities — they provide about as much excitement as cranking in the dead weight of a waterlogged boot.

But the critical issue isn’t how much fun a recreational angler has during a day on the river. What matters is the natural health of rivers, including the perpetuation of their native fish. Long ago, Aldo Leopold concluded that throwing an intricate river system out of natural balance places that system in danger. He pointed out that planting fish has nothing to do with identifying and solving the specific problems that led to the presumed need to plant them, and he believed that far more good could be accomplished by doing away with hatcheries and investing in habitat protection and restoration instead.

I think he’s right, and I think it can be done.

When I began fishing the North Umpqua, Frank Moore, now a celebrated 93-year-old Oregon conservationist, produced Pass Creek, a short film that documented the irresponsible logging practices that were occurring throughout the river’s vast watershed. Frank traveled to anywhere that people were willing to watch the film. Pass Creek helped eliminate destructive logging, and that helped save wild fish.

After inhibiting fish runs for 106 years, and after much controversy, Gold Ray Dam on Oregon’s Rogue River was removed in 2010. That also helped wild fish. In 2014, with the backing of the National Park Service, the 210-foot-high Glines Canyon dam in northwestern Washington was removed, and that also helped wild fish.

For years, Klamath River Basin farmers, ranchers and salmon-dependent Indian tribes have been fighting in court over water rights. The farmers and ranchers want reservoir water to irrigate 170,000 acres of arid land; the tribes want their traditional rights to harvest salmon protected. Now that the tribes have finally been granted senior water rights, preparations are underway to begin dismantling four huge dams on the 236-mile Klamath. As California Gov. Jerry Brown put it, “This is a good exercise of humankind correcting some of the mistakes that it’s made in the past.”

With dams coming down, why not hatcheries? There are plans to convert the Butte Falls Hatchery near the Rogue River into a facility for growing $hitake mushrooms and wasabi. That’s a good start. Converting structures into something useful always makes more sense than tearing them down. Before it’s too late, let’s make every possible effort to get our wild rivers back and protect the wild fish that live in them.



Michael Baughman is a contributor to Writers on the Range, the opinion service of High Country News (hcn.org). He writes in Ashland, Oregon.

 

[hobster]

.

I personally believe (with absolutely zero data to back it up) that hatchery fish interbreeding with wild fish, or among themselves isn't as big a problem as some believe (although might compete for gravel and food). It seems the strongest (if any) will survive. If they can compete with the native stocks, maybe they'll be just fine..

I agree, this is a sensitive subject and many anglers are passionate about it. I think hatcheries are a good thing, there would be a lot of unhappy people in Oregon without them. ODFW could do a much better job of handling them though. For example, I know this has been discussed before, but the trap at Whitaker on the Slaw isn't even set up yet. I think they set it up the first week of the new year, but I know for a fact hatchery fish are running up the creek, polluting the gene pool!
It is a volunteer STEP program, but I know ODFW overlooks the process, and have now taken over the smolt program.

 

[rogerdodger]

I agree, this is a sensitive subject and many anglers are passionate about it. I think hatcheries are a good thing, there would be a lot of unhappy people in Oregon without them. ODFW could do a much better job of handling them though. For example, I know this has been discussed before, but the trap at Whitaker on the Slaw isn't even set up yet. I think they set it up the first week of the new year, but I know for a fact hatchery fish are running up the creek, polluting the gene pool!
It is a volunteer STEP program, but I know ODFW overlooks the process, and have now taken over the smolt program.

just a couple of things that I can add- trap isn't in yet due primarily to high water flow that brings down trees/logs/debris each December, also it is my understanding that our fin clipped fish started as wild Siuslaw fish and the eggs/milt used each year comes from our returning clipped fish, so genetically they should not really be different from our wild fish, they just started life in a hatchery.

ODFW has always grown the smolts from our fertilized eggs, the difference this year is that they will take the fertilized eggs straight away and do all the incubation, hatching, and growing before they return to be released as smolts. There is a big effort to make sure that every year, we get every single smolt released that is allowed under CMP (100K); without them the Siuslaw is just a C&R river with a 'light' wild run and all the predators would have only wild fish to consume (happily no bass in the system!)....cheers, roger

 

[hobster]

Thanks for clarifying that buddy, I was actually referring to our conversation. I guess there aren't many "truly native" fish left anyway. Looking forward to hooking some with you out there soon!

 

[JonT]

Thanks for clarifying that buddy, I was actually referring to our conversation. I guess there aren't many "truly native" fish left anyway. Looking forward to hooking some with you out there soon!

I believe there are still native genetics out there and to a greater extent than most people think. Fish are picky on the redds for a reason, especially steelhead.

 

[hobster]

I certainly hope so!