Take Action: ODFW Looking to Expand Wild Steelhead Harvest

WTF Oregon?

From Osprey Steelhead News comes this very important call to action!!!!!!

The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (ODFW) is in the midst of developing a new management plan for Oregon's coastal rivers. Among the more controversial provisions is ODFW's plan to open wild steelhead retention in several rivers that are among the last best wild steelhead producing watersheds on the coast. Among the rivers that would be opened to harvesting wild steelhead are the Nehalem, Trask, Big Elk Creek in the Yaquina watershed, Lake Creek in the Siuslaw watershed, the Salmon, the Lower and Middle Umpqua River, SF Coos, NF Coquille and EF Coquille. This combined with ODFWs focus on harvest opportunities supported by hatcheries, and their increasing reliance on wild broodstock programs that rob productivity from wild steelhead populations to provide harvest opportunity poses a major threat to the future of wild steelhead on the Oregon Coast.

Please take a few minutes to call or email ODFW's Conservation and Recovery Assistant Program Manager Tom Stahl and voice your opinion against the harvest of wild steelhead in Oregon.

Thomas.Stahl@state.or.us or          

503-947-6219    

Federal Science Panel Releases Review of the Elwha Hatchery Programs

Care to guess what they determined?

From Osprey Steelhead News:

Last week the Hatchery Scientific Review Group (HSRG), an independent federal science review panel released a long awaited review of the Elwha Hatchery programs. Not surprisingly the HSRG came to many of the same conclusions as we did in choosing to join the Wild Fish Conservancy, Wild Steelhead Coalition and Conservation Angler in a lawsuit against the Elwha hatchery program.

Specifically, the current hatchery emphasis in the plan is unnecessary and counterproductive to the aim of recovering robust wild populations in the Elwha River and that an inadequate monitoring program will limit the ability to adaptively manage hatchery programs and determine the degree to which they are aiding or hindering recovery. Furthermore, no specific recovery goals or thresholds have been established that would lead to a reduction in the degree of hatchery supplementation in the Elwha and many of the hatchery fish being released into the Elwha are not marked with an adipose fin clip.

A few quotes from the document:

"The main concern the HSRG has with the Elwha Plan is the potential for unintended negative consequences of excessive and prolonged hatchery influence."

"Prolonged hatchery influence may lead to loss of fitness of natural populations, potentially resulting in reduced or delayed restoration and loss of long‐term sustainable harvest opportunities."

"Inadequate program monitoring may lead to management decisions that reduce or delay recovery, rather than promoting it, and prevent managers from identifying and testing alternatives that could be more effective."

"The continued production of Chambers Creek steelhead stock during the early phases of recovery therefore appears inconsistent with the priorities and goals the managers have presented."

Download a copy of the HSRG report

1st Washington wild steelhead management zone established

Wild Sol Duc Chrome

In a victory for wild steelhead advocates, Washington State has established it's first Wild Steelhead Management Area in the Sol Duc River. The WSMA is a direct result of the department's decision to end the Snider Creek hatchery program which was influenced by 400 public comments generated though the collective efforts of advocacy groups and media outlets, including this site. To those of you who took the time to submit a comment favoring ending the Snider Creek program, take pride in knowing that you helped make a difference for wild steelhead in Washington State.

Thanks to the Native Fish Society, Wild Steelhead Coalition, Osprey Steelhead News, John McMillan and Dick Burge who were on the leading edge of this effort.

NEWS RELEASE
Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife
February 8, 2012
Contact: Ron Warren, (360) 249-1201
 
Sol Duc wild steelhead management zone
established; Snider Creek program to end
 
OLYMPIA – The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife (WDFW) has announced it will end a hatchery steelhead program at Snider Creek next year to establish a wild steelhead management zone in the Sol Duc River.
 
After next spring, no hatchery steelhead will be released into the Sol Duc River, which will be the first wild steelhead management zone formally established in the state under the department’s Statewide Steelhead Management Plan, said Ron Warren, regional fish program manager for WDFW. Snider Creek is a tributary to the Sol Duc River in Clallam County.
 
Wild management zones, also known as wild stock gene banks, are designed to preserve key populations of wild fish by minimizing interactions with hatchery-produced fish, said Warren. Research has shown that hatchery fish are often less genetically diverse and can impact wild stocks through interbreeding or competition for food or habitat.
 
WDFW is also looking to identify other streams that could be candidates for wild management zones, said Warren. That effort includes working with an advisory group to identify specific streams in the Puget Sound region.
 
“Establishing wild management zones is part of a broad effort aimed at modifying our hatchery programs to be compatible with conservation and recovery of naturally spawning salmon and steelhead populations,” Warren said. “Shifting hatchery steelhead production away from the Sol Duc River – where we have one of the largest wild steelhead populations in the state – is an important step in that effort.”
 
Changes designed to support naturally spawning salmon and steelhead populations are driven by plans and policies adopted by the Washington Fish and Wildlife Commission, such as the Statewide Steelhead Management Plan and the Hatchery and Fishery Reform policy, Warren said.
 
The Statewide Steelhead Management Plan is available on the department’s website at http://wdfw.wa.gov/conservation/fisheries/steelhead/, while the commission’s hatchery and fishery reform policy is available at http://wdfw.wa.gov/commission/policies/c3619.html.
 
While the hatchery program will no longer take place at Snider Creek, WDFW is working with stakeholders to re-establish a similar effort in the Bogachiel or Calawah rivers, where the department already releases hatchery steelhead, said Warren.
 
The program will end next spring, when 25,000 winter steelhead smolts are released into the Sol Duc River, Warren said. Last year, WDFW also discontinued its summer steelhead program on the Sol Duc River, after releasing 20,000 smolts.
 
Before making that decision, WDFW conducted three public meetings and reviewed about 400 public comments on the future of the Snider Creek program.
 
While fewer and fewer hatchery steelhead will be returning to the Sol Duc River in the coming years, anglers will continue to have opportunities to fish for salmon and other game fish, as well as retain one wild steelhead per license year on the river, said Warren. 
 
The Snider Creek program was created in 1986 as a joint project with the Olympic Peninsula Guides’ Association to increase fishing opportunities for steelhead on the Sol Duc River. The program is unlike most other hatchery efforts in that it produces offspring from wild steelhead rather than hatchery fish.

Lower Coumbia Chum Getting a Boost!

Via Osprey Steelhead News comes some good news regarding our namesake.

Listed Chum Salmon in the Lower Columbia River are seeing better than average returns this year. The fish which spawn in tributaries and a few mainstem areas of the Columbia River below Bonneville are wrapping up spawning and WDFW's counts of fish in the area have been encouraging. Check out this article from the Columbia Basin Bulletin on Chum counts this year and some restoration projects that are starting to pay dividends.

LINK

Osprey Volume 70 - The BC Issue

 Osprey's first ever BC issue is out in mailboxes and flyshops everywhere. The issue is full of great content and photography showcasing British Columbia's salmon and steelhead and some of the pressing conservation challenges they face.

In this issue:

• Skeena River Update.

• BC steelhead under siege, the fight against open net pen fish farms and enbridge will shape the future for BC's wild salmon.

• Run of River Hydropower, taking water out of as many as 800 rivers throughout the province.

• Thompson River Collapse.

• By-catch Blues for the Dean, Skeena and Fraser

• Keogh River steelhead research

To get your copy of the issue visit thier website and subscribe today.

Diminished Reproductive Success of Steelhead from a Hatchery Supplementation Program

From Osprey Steelhead News comes this dispatch regarding a recent study further proving that hatchery fish reduce the health of wild stocks.

A recent study authored by a group of biologists from NOAA and ODFW explores reproductive success of hatchery v. wild steelhead in a tributary of the Imnaha River in Oregon. The "integrated" hatchery program in which hatchery juveniles were progeny of wild parents or parents of relatively recent wild ancestry still showed a dramatic decline in reproductive fitness relative to their hatchery counterparts (30-60%). This research adds to the ever growing body of evidence that hatchery fish are extremely unsuccessful when spawning in the wild and that hatchery spawners dramatically reduce the productivity of wild stocks and further call into question managers ongoing reliance on hatcheries in recovery efforts.

LINK