Court Rules That Elwha Hatchery Releases Violate NEPA

Photo: Tim Pask

Smash the hatchery welfare state! - Horatio Nailknot

Responding to wild-fish advocates, a federal court has ordered federal authorities to revise plans to restore Elwha River fish runs, ruling the government did not fully study how many hatchery fish should be used to bring salmon back to the recently undammed river.

Judge Benjamin Settle ruled last week in U.S. District Court in Tacoma that federal agencies did not adequately consider the effects a large-scale release of hatchery-reared salmon and steelhead would have on wild-fish populations.

The government's plan, he said, set “arbitrary” numbers of how many hatchery fish would be released that “may not be based on consideration of the impacts on the endangered species or the wild runs.”

LINK (via: The Peninsula Daily News)

Picketing planned for Native Fish Society event

I'm donating a dollar to the Native Fish Society for every picketer that shows up. 

LINK (via: The Statesmen Journal)

How about a little math. 

Facebook likes

Native Fish Society - 1,888

Three Rivers Sportsman's Alliance 1,148

Give the Native Fish Society a like on Facebook and help drive the point home that even more of us care about wild fish. 

Coincidentally the NFS party is the same night as the IF4 screening in Seattle which is a fundraiser for the Wild Steelhead Coalition. It will be a big night to make a statement for wild fish. 

Wild Fish In Gene Banks, Hatchery Fish In Elwha — Why The Two-Headed Strategy?

Washington state has banned hatchery-raised steelhead from three tributaries of the Upper Columbia River basin. The aim of these so-called "gene banks" is to maintain strongholds for wild fish, and the state plans to designate additional gene banks in the future.

Here's the $64,000 $16,000,000 question.

So why were the state and federal governments back in court this week, defending the decision to place a new hatchery on the Elwha River as part of the dam removal process?

LINK (via: KPLU)

Slow Moving Domestic Trout Caught Using Speed Trap

Photo: Peter Potrowl

Further proof hatchery fish suck.

Washington State University researchers have documented dramatic differences in the swimming ability of domesticated trout and their wilder relatives. The study calls into question the ability of hatcheries to mitigate more than a century of disturbances to wild fish populations.

LINK (via: RedOrbit)

Three tributaries of Columbia River designated wild steelhead gene banks

In what is a major victory for wild steelhead, and a decision that is sure to make many a pro-hatchery talking head explode, the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife yesterday designated three tributaries of the lower Columbia River as "wild steelhead gene banks," where it will no longer release steelhead raised in fish hatcheries.

Starting this year, WDFW will no longer plant hatchery steelhead in the East Fork Lewis River or the North Fork Toutle/Green River. The Wind River, which has not been stocked with steelhead since 1997, will also be off-limits to any future releases.

LINK

There was even better news if you care about wild fish....

Jim Scott, assistant director of WDFW's Fish Program noted that WDFW plans to create more wild steelhead gene banks throughout the state in the years ahead.

"During the next six months, we will be focusing on establishing wild steelhead gene banks for Puget Sound and lower Columbia tributaries below the Cowlitz River," Scott said. "As with the plan announced today, our goal will be to continue to make those fish available for area fisheries where doing so is consistent with our steelhead conservation goals."

Understanding Movements of Steelhead in the Clearwater River Drainage

The Idaho Department of Fish and Game, in collaboration with Nez Perce Tribal Fisheries Research Division, has been tracking steelhead bound for the South Fork Clearwater River since September with the primary objective of trying to better understand how steelhead move and use the river system and what causes them to move.  It is especially important to learn how wild steelhead move through the river differently than the hatchery fish.

LINK (via:The Fish Ladder)