Call it what it is.

[Shaun Solomon]

"Native" steelhead? Steelhead are native. Call them wild fish if you want to differentiate between hatchery fish and non-hatchery fish.

It reminds me of "harvesting" game animals. Bull$*it. You harvest beets, you harvest soy beans. You kill animals. Sorry. I eat animals, and I own it. I have no problem with hunting for food. I see it as a good thing, actually. But come on... all the pussy-footing around reality knocks me for a loop.

:thumb::lol:opcorn:

 

[Raincatcher]

Welllll....alrighty then. :worthy: :lol:

 

[C_Run]

I had never heard the "harvest" thing before but maybe it's because I don't hunt. The guy who helped me mow our lawn a couple of years ago said he had "harvested" his first elk, said he had been trying to get one "all my life". It sounded funny because he was 16. I didn't complain, though, when he handed off a big pack of steaks. That stuff is good!

 

[JeannaJigs]

I've always called the natives, and will continue to do so. You can call em what you want, that's the beauty of it, no one cares what they're called. Just go fishing and worry about less petty thing.

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SM-G900A using Tapatalk

 

[Shaun Solomon]

Well, I'm not "worried" about it, per se. I am bemused. I attempted to convey that with the emoji.

Here is a purely rhetorical question... where you worrying about me being worried about natives?

Call them Rutherford Pendergast the third if it suits you.

:love_heart:

 

[troutmasta]

I say Nates, the idea being they are native to that body of water not the state of Oregon. I also say harvest all the time, theres a lot more to killing the meat or growing the crop, you have to "harvest" that into food. But eh, Dr. Rutherford Pendergast Sr. will do just fine

 

[Shaun Solomon]

High fives all around.

Just so everyone knows, I was semi-serious, as I am confounded by the terminology, but it was also meant to be a little tongue in cheek.

As the hippies say, "It's all good!"

Cheers y'all.

R.P. III

 

[troutmasta]

R.P. III

:thumb:

 

[DrTheopolis]

I didn't realize there was so much confusion on the terminology.

"Wild" -- a fish that was spawned and reared in the river/lake by natural process.

"Hatchery" -- exactly what it implies.

"Native" -- fish that was spawned from native-to-the-river/lake stock. There's much debate about how many truly "wild" fish are left, since over the last 100+ years, the chances of a native stock's bloodline at some point being "watered-down" through interbreeding with hatchery stocks are pretty high, although it's believed there's a few truly "native" (or close to) stocks left in the state.

 

[Shaun Solomon]

Not sure how much confusion there is, Doc. Just a lot of people with similar operational definitions of different words.

Is anyone aware of recent genetic comparative analysis of hatchery vs. non-hatchery steelhead or salmon? I for one would be very surprised if there was a fingernails difference between them. Obviously they behave differently and show differing levels of fitness for their environment, I'm not attempting to dispute that idea.

R.P. III

 

[jamisonace]

Haha....I wrote a story about a buck I decided not to "harvest" and a buddy responded with: "we're you hunting with a swather?"

"Native" steelhead? Steelhead are native. Call them wild fish if you want to differentiate between hatchery fish and non-hatchery fish.

It reminds me of "harvesting" game animals. Bull$*it. You harvest beets, you harvest soy beans. You kill animals. Sorry. I eat animals, and I own it. I have no problem with hunting for food. I see it as a good thing, actually. But come on... all the pussy-footing around reality knocks me for a loop.

:thumb::lol:opcorn:

 

[Shaun Solomon]

Hahaha exactly! Just funny to me.

 

[DrTheopolis]

I for one would be very surprised if there was a fingernails difference between them. Obviously they behave differently and show differing levels of fitness for their environment, I'm not attempting to dispute that idea.

I believe the big issue is more of a matter of the hatchery practices. At some point, they took Natives (which may or may not have come from the basin they were planted in), and spawned hatchery fish. But the problem was/is, they then spawned the next batch from returning hatchery fish. Then again, and again. So rather than survival-of-the-fittest, it essentially became as branch-free as a family tree in Mississippi. On rivers that can support it, broodstock programs are a great answer to the problem (people gripe, but hatcheries learn and improve their practices over time).

But from the little bit I know (and I mean "little" -- I'm no fish biologist), it's not as severe an issue as groups like NFS make it out to be. The great example is coho in the Upper Willamette Basin. Still going strong after 40 years from what were originally hatchery plants, and they've adapted quite nicely.

But technically, there's a difference between a "native" and a "wild" fish. Naturally spawning brown trout in say, Harriet are "wild," but they'll never be "native," since they're native to Germany and were brought to North America. Steelhead stocks that have been doing the same song-and-dance for millennia without hatchery influence, like for instance on the Salmonberry, are "native."

 

[Shaun Solomon]

For sure! Wild goats all over Hawaii, and pigs, and rats, and cats... none of those are native to the islands. It all gets cloudy after a while though. For example, how many generations will it take before browns in North America are no longer thought of as introduced? Eventually it all becomes academic. If rats get to a place on a raft of dead wood, they are not considered introduced. If we bring them there on a clipper ship, they are. And so forth and so on.

Of course the damage to the fitness of the stocks of hatchery raised steelhead come as a result of unnatural rates of survival. I have my own suspicion that something very similar is going on with homo sapiens, but that might be beyond the scope of this conversation.

 

[DrTheopolis]

I have my own suspicion that something very similar is going on with homo sapiens, but that might be beyond the scope of this conversation.

I think my proven ability to dodge a coathanger in utero demonstrates I have the skills necessary to survive this cruel world.[/tasteless]

 

[Shaun Solomon]

DUDE!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAH!! oh man...

 

[jamisonace]

^^x2... guilty laughter

DUDE!!!!! HAHAHAHAHAH!! oh man...

 

[eugene1]

Is anyone aware of recent genetic comparative analysis of hatchery vs. non-hatchery steelhead or salmon? I for one would be very surprised if there was a fingernails difference between them.

There have indeed been studies that have shown genetic differences between wild fish and hatchery fish.

Obviously they behave differently and show differing levels of fitness for their environment, I'm not attempting to dispute that idea. R.P. III

+1 I agree and the research would support you!