Disease kills 150,000 hatchery fish

Disease stemming from warm water in the North Umpqua River has killed 150,000 hatchery steelhead at a Roseburg area fish hatchery, marking the facility's second mass die-off this summer.

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife alerted the public Friday to the deaths among its summer steelhead stock, blaming an historic drought that has heated the Umpqua's water and allowed pathogens to thrive.

LINK (via: Oregon Live)

The Flip-Side of Fish Hatcheries

Originally intended to preserve salmon, are hatcheries harming the species?

LINK (via:Comstock's)

The Heat is On

As a last ditch effort to save Oregon hatchery fish from increasingly warm waters, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has transferred more than 160,000 salmon to a different hatchery.

LINK (via: Oregon Live)

Single Fish Kills 400,000 Spring Chinook at Oregon Hatchery

Image:Tess McBride, US Fish and Wildlife Service

No, it wasn’t a case of some super-predator breaking into the raceways to gobble up all those young salmon. Instead, officials said that the fish somehow wedged itself into an intake pipe and cut off freshwater from coming into the raceway.

“A fish carcass clogged an intake pipe at Rock Creek Hatchery, shutting off the flow of water to a raceway, killing 400,000 spring Chinook pre-smolts.

LINK (via: Outdoor Hub)

$34 million in hatchery fish threatened by state government shutdown

Photo: Amit Patel

Here's one way to kill state run hatchery programs.

Millions of dollars in fish could be at stake if state lawmakers can't agree on a budget and avoid a government shutdown.

Dozens of hatcheries across Washington, where fish are raised, could be temporarily closed. There are millions of fish being raised by the Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW). The fish need attention and care but the workers who provide that could be off the job without a paycheck.

LINK (via: King 5)

WDFW forced to release hatchery steelhead into inland lakes again this year

The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) was hoping that NOAA's completion of a draft environmental assessment would lead to approval of their steelhead hatchery operations and clear the way for the releasing of steelhead into several Puget Sound rivers. Unfortunately for the state and hatchery welfare advocates, NOAA's decision to go with the more rigorous environmental impact statement means that a decision on approval of the WDFW hatchery programs would come after the 2015 release window which stops the program for another year.

LINK

Here's to the power of grassroots advocacy.

According to NOAA the decision was based, in part, on more than 2,000 public comments that expressed a wide range of questions and concerns about the environmental impact of hatchery steelhead programs.

Needless to say the WDFW and their pro hatchery constituents are not happy.