Elwha Hatchery Loses Half Its Fish

The danger of putting all your eggs in the hatchery basket.

The failure of a secondary pump at the Elwha fish hatchery has resulted in the loss of 200,000 juvenile coho and 2,000 steelhead. This latest loss comes after a loss of hatchery Chinook earlier this spring due to the mistaken release of smolts coinciding with a brief high sediment load.

According to many experts the hatchery on the Elwha was unnecessary and natural spawning would have been a much more effective and economical strategy to re-colonize the Elwha fish populations. Instead we've all paid for a 16 million dollar hatchery boondoggle that has been one giant fiasco.

LINK (via: Earthfix)