Research Indicates Wild Fish Conservation Best Served By Minimizing Wild/Hatchery Interactions

An exhaustive look at available data for 89 populations of chinook and coho salmon and steelhead shows that productivity in the wild shrinks in direct proportion with increases in the percentage of hatchery fish that join wild fish on the spawning grounds.

LINK (Via:CBBulletin)

Meanwhile the debate continues.

After more than three decades of hatchery debate, Pacific Rivers Council and the Native Fish Society upped the ante this week by singling out the Sandy River Hatchery.

The groups filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration over the hatchery's impacts on wild fish and delays in reviewing those impacts.

LINK (Via: Oregon Live)

Sandy River Guides Ken Anderson, Jad Donaldson, Jeff Hickman, Tom Larimer, Mia Pringle, Marty Sheppard, Marcy Stone and Cullen Wisenhunt spell it out in this guest editorial.

Tide turning against Columbia Basin hatcheries?

Federal fish biologists today issued their most thorough evaluation to date of the effects of hatchery fish on wild salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River Basin, signaling that hatchery funding and production could be cut to better protect wild runs.

LINK (Via: Oregon Live)

What do Wild Steelhead mean to you?

Tis the season to gear up for Winter steelheading.  For us in Washington, it comes in two phases - the hatchery run followed by the wild run.  And when Moldy Chum prioritizes its calendar weekends for the next six months,  February, March, and April take pole position.  It's not a priority fueled by quantity or percentages rather one defined by experience.  It is this experience that has incented Trout Unlimited and Moldy Chum to ask for your help.

We invite all Moldy Chum friends and followers to take 1 minute to answer this survey that asks how much anglers in Washington state value wild steelhead as opposed to hatchery-reared fish. The data gathered, non-scientific though it may be, will be provided to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“We’d like to find out just how important the experience of catching a wild steelhead is to the recreational angler in Washington,” said Rob Masonis, vice president of Western Conservation for TU. “From a conservation standpoint, we worry that hatchery fish are diluting wild stocks and reducing the hearty nature of steelhead in the Northwest. But we recognize the overall importance of steelhead to the recreational angler. I guess it boils down to a simple question: would you rather catch a wild fish or a hatchery fish?”