What do you think?

[NEUTRON]

"We don't advocate for any catch and release,
said Charles Hudson, a spokesman for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal fish commission.
The salmon comes back to either give itself up or to spawn. To judge a fish by the mutilation of a clipped fin is not in keeping with the tribal view of the completion of a life cycle. It's at the heart of the spritual question." images/icons/mad.gif

[GoFish]

More B.S. meant to justify the contradition between the practice of killing indescrimately while trying to keep the appearance of concerned conservationists in the popular press.

[Artwo]

I agree, more BS. Is it also at the heart of the spiritual question to harvest these fish using modern means and then let them rot in the back of a pick-up.

JK

[rob allen]

I don't mind the tribes catching their fish, even if they take more than their share I think we sport fishermen still get plenty. However I thinkgillnets are an extremely poor method of harvest if there is any concern for long term survival of the fish. They also ignore all the science that exsists as related to the negative impacts of hatchery fish on wild populations. They often talk about the massive numbers of fish spawning in the Umatilla river as a result of their planting however they do not draw any distinction between a spawning fish and a reproducing fish. A hatchery fish will spawn wherever it wants but if it's eggs do not hatch or the juvinile salmon do not survive to adulthood what good are they? They make the same mistakes that many organizations make becausew they see hatcheries as giving them more opportunity to catch fish. Hatcheries provide nothing for the long term survival of anything. In fact hatcheries are a major cause of the problems with wild fish. In other words all hatchery fish should be clipped and no hactchery fish should be planted inareas where they cannot be kept from spawning in the wild.

[Phish_on]

I'm sure that philosophy was pretty good, 300 years ago.

[Killertraylor]

I disagree, Rob. I'm no expert, but I have a hard time believing that hatchery springers are any different than "wild" springers. This issue has been debated here several times and I'm not sure anyone knows what a "wild" fish is anymore. We've had hatcheries on the Columbia since the late 1800's. I'm sure that the hatchery run has it's share of "retards" but it also has plenty of "Schwartznegger" fish also that will reproduce. In my opinion the hatcheries should be in the business of producing fish - as many of them as possible, regardless of whether they intermix with the wild stock. I think we could have 3,000,000 fish runs that would largely sustain themselves if this was their objective. Seems that the endangered wild fish would have just as good of a chance making it back to that 2 foot wide tributary in Idaho with larger runs of hatchery fish to fill up sportfisherman and commercial bag limits.

[FishinMission]

Hmmmmm....I wonder how many of those "Casino" profits go to helping restore the fish runs and habitat?? Anybody know?? And by the way....where do "Casino's" fit into the "heritage" thing anyway?? My own 2 cents worth??? Let them net for their own use..but NO selling. Period.

[boater]

if there were no hatcherys, we all would have no fish to catch, or very very few.

[rob allen]

I am afraid guys that it's not a matter of opinion or wanting to believe anything. No matter how healthy ,large or full of energy a particular run of hatchery fish they still fail to reproduce in the wild. There has been study after study testifying to the fact.
The Wind river has been closed to steelheading for the last few years due to pittifully low returns of wild fish.
This last fall was the first years for no hatchery fish and the run size was
more than tripled.

Studies on the Kalama show that even though hatchery steelhead make up the vast majority of wild spawners genetic testing has shown that what returns from the naturally produced fish are pure wild strain not the offspring of the hatchery spawners.

I once counted 300 pairs of hatchery coho spawning in a small tributary to the Washougal. 1985 in fact anyone remember the coho run that fall? Anyway of thoes 300 pairs? spawners they faild to produce a single smolt! That was the last year there were coho in that creek.

It's really undenyable there are very few cases if any where hatchery fish have successfully reproduced in anything other that a token amount.

because of all this the notion that our wild stocks are somehow made less pure by hatchery interactions is largely untrue because the offspring if there are any do not survive to become part of the population. However hatchery fish do spawn with wild fish and keep the wild fish from reproducing successfully.

If one looks at the history of the Washougal river it is extremely clear that the single biggest reason for the demise of it's wild run is the hatchery!

notice here in recent years with smaller plants of hatchery fish more and more people are catching wild fish... still think there is no correlation?