Article in Science News Weekly

I thought some of you might be interested in this recent article in Science News Weekly
by Janet Raloff. I would be interested on some of you more learned guys take on it.
Stew
Each year, hatcheries release millions of chinook into the Columbia River system in a bid by state game managers to save wild stocks of this salmon. The fish there is so beleaguered that many of its populations, threatened with extinction, are protected under the Endangered Species Act. A new study now offers evidence that hatchery fish may be hastening the wild stocks' demise.

Phillip S. Levin and his colleagues with the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) in Seattle analyzed chinook-population data spanning the past quarter century for the Snake River, which feeds into the Columbia. Some 18 months after the fall spawning of chinook, a river of smolts heads for the ocean, where the young fish will spend the next 4 or more years. The Seattle scientists compared releases of hatchery-reared smolts with data on the number of returning wild adults.

The team also noted fluctuations in food available for the smolts once they reach the ocean. Measures of the local oysters' plumpness indicate ocean-food resources. Work by others, Levin explains, has shown that this index reflects a year's food availability "all the way up the food chain."

Oyster data revealed that for waters around the mouth of the Columbia, none of the past 25 years has provided a feast. All the years had food supplies in the average or poor range. Poor years coincided with El Niño events—periods of climatic perturbations fostered by unusual warmth in large areas of the Pacific Ocean.

Populations of wild adults that had struck out for the ocean when near-shore food supplies were low had high rates of mortality. This mortality was aggravated, Levin's team found, when large numbers of hatchery smolts had entered the ocean with the wild fish.

In lean years, the more hatchery chinook released, the higher the mortality of wild stocks from that year's smolts. In contrast, the NMFS scientists detected no adverse effect of hatchery releases on wild smolts entering the Pacific in years with normal food supplies.

Levin notes, however, that El Niños are occurring at greater frequency in recent decades than previously, and global warming may also heat the Pacific. Consequently, the conditions now contributing to poor food availability in near-shore areas may become the norm in future decades, he cautions.

Levin's group reports its findings in the June 7 Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

The widely varying year-to-year numbers of chinook released by Snake River hatcheries made the new analysis possible, Levin explains. The release totals trace to political decisions, he notes, not to estimates of the environment's capacity to support salmon.

Today, Columbia River chinook adult stocks are so depleted that the northwest states permit little fishing of them. Yet, thanks to hatcheries, "there are more juvenile fish coming down the Columbia River than there have ever been," notes Ray Hilborn, a population ecologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Moreover, he notes hatchery-reared smolts, owing to their coddling, tend to enter the river bigger than their wild brethren—with bigger appetites. What's happening, he says, is that hatchery fish are replacing wild salmon.

That's not what was supposed to happen, says Jim Lichatowich, a consulting salmon biologist in Oregon. "The Endangered Species Act says that [wild populations] have to be sustainable in their natural environment," he explains. The act also seeks to preserve local wild populations, not to replace them with hatchery-reared emigrants.

The new report illustrates the flawed logic in attempting "to overcome declining wild populations by filling the system to overcapacity with hatchery fish," Lichatowich argues.

Indeed, until this report by Levin's team, discussions of the environment's carrying capacity for wild chinook focused on competition for food in rivers, adds Michael Schiewe, director of fish ecology for NMFS in Seattle. "Most people thought that in the ocean there'd be no problem," he says—its resources seemed limitless.

This is just one more piece of evidence "making it abundantly clear the ocean is not unlimited," says Brian Riddell of the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans' Pacific Biological Station in Nanaimo, British Columbia.

The bottom line, Lichatowich says, is that over their 125-year history, salmon hatcheries have shown that "they cannot maintain the supply of salmon in the face of shrinking habitat." Though overfishing contributed to the initial depletion of chinook, he says, "what's keeping the salmon populations low right now is habitat"—rivers cut off by dams, drained periodically by irrigators, and contaminated with pollutants.

[Pilar]

Very interesting. 2 questions, who pays the guys who did the study? and What do the hatchery and game management officals think about this information?

Will they change the numbers of fish released to match the food supply available?

Isn't it ironic that the ESA, meant to protect declining species actually seems to contribute to their demise? Politically motivated actions by Game management officials are nothing new.

What do you think?

[Thumper]

All I can say is that over here in God's country the fishing is great and the fish are mostly hatchery and the hatchery fish continue to kick butt over the natives. DON'T TAKE OUR HATCHERIES!!!

[Backlash2]

Whoops.... [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img] [img]images/icons/grin.gif[/img]

[ 08-30-2001: Message edited by: Backlash2 ]

[Grant Scheele]

Nice find Bigstew!

[finclipped]

I like garyk's idea of healthy hatchery's. They worked for thousands of years and we didn't half to spend any money. The problem is that we have nearly replaced our wild fish with hatchery's and I think were all a little too dependent on ODFW's nipple.

Regarding the Sardines, when ODFW approved those additional sardine permits I posted it on this board. Eventually feed conditions will turn and these permits holders will likely ask for government assistance to cope with the reducing Sardine population. It doesn't make any sense to continually increase long term permit holders during short periods of rebounds.

[Fin]

Backlash2: There is a Vancouver in the USA too........(but don't tell anyone)

Good article Stew. Thanks. ... I agree with what Gary K posted.

RT

[rob allen]

Excellent article Stew..

It appears the same as it was 30 years ago. with hatchery plants less is more.. Imagine the Columbia before all the human impacts. noone would ever think of going to Alaska.

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Very good post Big Stew as well as a very good post Gary K.

The idea that populations of salmon are habitat and food dependant has never been lost on me. See post from following archive:


http://www.oregonlive.com/forums/wil...frame=response

*** Clerk

[birdhunter]

Blah, blah blah...I've been saying that for years....I get really tired of all this hatchery bashing. We now find yet another study telling us that hatcherys are evil and should be done away with. Gee, I wonder why that is. Perhaps it is because yes, hatcheries were not built to restore wild fish runs and therefore don't serve that purpose. They are suppose to churn out fish for sport and commercial fishermen, which they do quite well. In case you couldn't already tell, I love my hatchery fish. Yummm. Delicious.

When you talk about factors affecting salmon survival you talk about the 4 H's. Habitat, Hatcheries, Harvest, and Hydro. Any guesses how those rank in importance? I'd be willing to bet that hatcheries are not at the top of the list. My guess is that dams kill a lot more fish than any finclipped salmon.

Let's take a look at something RT posted back in January. Dr. Jack Thomas, a professor of Wildlife Conservation at the University of Montana summed up the plight of salmon and the often inane arguments we get into by saying this:

"As we stand here talking, the trawlers are working right off the mouth of the Columbia, and the sports fishing boats and their occupants are catching salmon. But we would not want to handle the economic, social, and political consequences of addressing that situation. Whatever salmon escape the nets and the hooks at sea start up the Columbia River and swim through the effluent from Portland and the settlements of the Willamette River. From this point forward they begin to encounter nets set by Native Americans fishing in concurrence with their treaty rights. A glance to either side of the river reveals an Interstate Highway and a parallel set of railroad tracks on one side and a double-lane road and a railroad on the other bank. There are dredges opening a channel for barge traffic. But, understandably enough, it would be tough to handle the economic, social, and political consequences of dealing with those limiting factors. And, whatever fish are left come to the first dam. Some get over the dam, and some don't. Then, the survivors swim through the tens of miles of slack water to the next dam, and the process is repeated. Some get over the dam, and some don't. This is repeated eleven times before the survivors can turn up the Grande Ronde River headed for the spawning gravels from which they emerged. But, clearly, we are not willing to face the social, political, and economic consequences of facing up to the problem associated with dams-particularly the dams in the lower river. As the fish proceed upstream they encounter agricultural areas where plowed fields stop only where they encounter the stream banks, and the runoff from the fields is laced with herbicides, insecticides, and fertilizer. Pumps pull irrigation water from the river and there are diversion ditches. Roads and railroads parallel the stream course for many of the miles from the mouth of the Grand Ronde River to Meadow Creek. Cows pound the stream banks on the private lands to the boundary of the Experimental Forest. But, clearly, we are not willing to face the social, political, and economic consequences of dealing with those problems. It is probably not necessary to go through this litany again to describe what the smolts will go through as they make their journey to the sea. And these would be the very few as might result from a chance encounter between what few salmon might make it back to the spawning gravels. So now we stand here and argue. We argue about whether We argue about whether the stubble height of three inches is so significantly different from that of two inches that a grazing experiment should be shut down in a riparian zone on a stream which has not had a single wild salmon return in 20-plus years. What is wrong this picture? Something had to be done somewhere to make it seem as if meaningful actions were underway somewhere. And so we were chosen. Why here? Why us? The answer seems simple enough to me. There were no social, economic, or political impacts of enough consequence to attract attention. We were relatively weak. We are not focusing on the real problems. We are taking on targets of opportunity, as regulators are demanded to do something, and it is directed toward those with relative lack of political clout."

Hyporcrites. "Hatcheries kill wild fish". Did you drive a car to your Trout Limited meeting? Did you buy bread made from grain that came down the Columbia in a barge? Do you have electricity? Why don't we start focusing on the real issues, instead of those that don't impact us too much.

With salmon levels at all time highs, we should be celebrating. Instead we are still troubled because the fish are our own creation. While hatchery fish are admittedly different from wild fish, focusing our efforts on removing them, or blaming them for the scarcity of wild salmon is foolish and irresponsible. Hatcheries have become the “whipping boy” for environmental groups, the legislature, and other government agencies. We should do what we can to create a realistic setting for the development of salmonids in hatcheries, but we must also realize that removing the hatcheries or changing their practices will not solve all the problems. We will have to reinvent the Northwest before we ever hope to see wild salmon returning in historic numbers. The habitat just isn't there. But clearly, we are not willing to face the social, political, and economic consequences of dealing with those problems. So lets just pick on the hatcheries.

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Birdhunter

Its OK, take a deep breath, relax…

You seem to make the same mistake that most people at ODFW do.

The Columbia is not the only river in Oregon. There are many rivers in Oregon that once had large resident populations of indigenous salmonids that do not have hydroelectric facilities. A case in point would be the Nestucca. The Nestucca has no dam or fish ladders to allow yearly counting, has relatively good habitat compared to other rivers yet its run of winter steelhead is threatened. Steelhead are not commercially harvested here in Oregon so the only thing left of the 4 H’s is hatcheries. I realize you are sensitive regarding the closure of hatcheries but someday reductions and closures are inevitable. Our economy can not afford to spend $50 to $100 to produce fish and turn around and commercially harvest them for 30 to 50 cents a pound.

As to the reason hatcheries were built in the first place… you realize there is no real data that shows that hatcheries do not just replace wild fish. Some say that with or without hatcheries the totals would be the same in the long run.

Seems kind of foolish to spend all this money just to give Philomath fish bio’s a job sampling DNA…

[garyk]

The idea that ba-zillions of hatchery smolts depress the available food supply has been postulated for about 20 years. This study gives credance to the theory.

Food supply was a bigger issue in the 80's when commercial salmon farms (like OreAqua) were briefly a hot idea.

Healthy rivers remain our best, most economical hatcheries.

Brief side note: notice how now that sardines are back and the salmon are getting fat, that there's effort afoot to re-start commercial sardine fishing. With billions spent to restore salmon, encouraging commercial sardine netting so a very few folks can make a few thousand dollars is just plain nuts.

[ 08-30-2001: Message edited by: garyk ]

[Backlash2]

Interesting that Dr. Thomas claims to know a lot about the salmon issue. Well, in just the small blurb you printed, I can find fault with a couple of different things.

First, the fish only have to cross 8 dams to get to the mouth of the Grand Ronde, not eleven.
Second, while our great biologists and scientists have many different views on many different fishy issues, almost all of them tend to agree that UPstream migration through the dams is not a problem. Fish do NOT sit there, butting there head against the base of the dam, until they kill themselves. Some even claim that the river is easier for the fish to navigate now, than it was before all the concrete. Celilo Falls, and many other rapids were a lot harder to climb than the set of stairs they have now.

Just my .02 cents. I guess it all depends on who you choose to believe, because at least one person supports every theory in existense.......

[birdhunter]

Sorry if I came off too strong in my first post. This issue is very near and dear to me.

First of all in response to *** clerk.

"Some say that with or without hatcheries the totals would be the same in the long run."

I disagree w/ you here. There isn't the habitat out there to support the amount of fish we currently have returning. We have record runs this year because of ocean conditions and hatchery plants. I admit that if you got rid of the hatchery fish there would be a slight increase in wild fish returns because you are taking out that competition. But no increase would be great enough to give us the numbers of fish we have returning this year. Thank your hatcheries for that.

"Our economy can not afford to spend $50 to $100 to produce fish and turn around and commercially harvest them for 30 to 50 cents a pound.


I don't support these numbers either. Sport fishing comes to a much higher price per pound than what commercial fishing will ever be able to get. I don't have the exact numbers on hand, but it was in a post not too long ago. If someone has it and can post it I would appreciate that. $100 per fish? The highest I've heard of is in the $60's. If you could provide a source for this I would appreciate it.

"As to the reason hatcheries were built in the first place… you realize there is no real data that shows that hatcheries do not just replace wild fish. "

You can go back as far as Livingston Stone (US fish Commission agent in the Pacific Northwest who built the first hatchery in Oregon on the Clackamas River) to see what the reasons were for building them. He argues in 1885 that after the exploitation of the Columbia Basin, there is a need for hatcheries to supply fishing pressures. This was in a time before any dams were present on the Columbia. You can find his full argument on pgs 27 -29 of The Northwest Salmon Crisis.

As far as Backlash2's claims go. I am also not a supporter of Dr. Jack Thomas. He was a Clinton apointee and really made a mess of the NW during his tenure. I don't agree w/ everything he says, but I do think that his particular quote did a good job of illustrating my point.

Dams may not kill as many fish on the way up, but can you give name me a river where the implementation of a dam didn't reduce the number of returning salmon? As Wallace Stegner so elloquently summed it up, "Dams do literaly kill rivers, which means they kill not only living water and natural scenery but a whole congeries of values associated with them."

The Dalles Dam in partiular stands out when you talk about dams being better for fish passage. The Hutchinson Memo in 1951 conisted of the regional director of the USFWS telling a reporter that salmon will fare better scaling the Dalles Dam than they did confronting the Indian fishery at Celilo Falls. This proved blantantly false, and as a result an important cultural site and wonder is now lost behind the dam. Callous attitudes toward indians and fish were accepted in the name of progress.

I think the bottom line right now is that the pendulum is swinging. Years ago it used to be that the only bad hatchery was the one not yet built. Now the buzz is about wild fish and how evil hatcheries are. Hopefully some day level headed minds will prevail and we will see that a balance is possible. You can have hatchery fish for selective sport harvest while still helping wild fish to thrive. When and how we'll get there is anyone's guess, but I look forward to it.

I'd write more but I'm leaving in 3 minutes for the weekend. Grouse opener (I mean it is my moniker). Feel free to respond but don't expect to hear back from me for a while. I do value opposing opinions and appreciate the debate. Good fishing.

Bird, what does the President who appointed Dr. Thomas have to do with anything? Maybe you were just stating a fact I am just wondering.
The point to me seems to be if we had'nt had things like dams and the like to destroy wild fish habitat we wouldn't need hatcheries because the wild fish runs would be healthy...okay that's a given. But we have become overly dependent on this artificial replacement to native fish runs. At this point in time and maybe it will always be so we need the hatcheries to sustain the sports fishing we all enjoy. If we are to consider ourselves enlightened sports anglers we must considere that wild fish are more desirable than hatchery fish. Who could disagree with that? We may never see a day in our lifetime when we can have a harvest of native fish but I would sure hope that at least we can move in that direction. It's an abomanation to have a commercial gillnet fishery that takes and kills wild fish.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>I think the bottom line right now is that the pendulum is swinging. Years ago it used to be that the only bad hatchery was the one not yet built. Now the buzz is about wild fish and how evil hatcheries are. Hopefully some day level headed minds will prevail and we will see that a balance is possible. You can have hatchery fish for selective sport harvest while still helping wild fish to thrive. When and how we'll get there is anyone's guess, but I look forward to it.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

Interesting debate - impossible to win because of the ultra complexities involved. But I do agree with the idea of "balance" between harvestable hatchery fish and protected native fish, as stated in your quote above Ben. If it's anybody's guess, I will venture an educated guess as to a possible or even likely scenario - and I hope it's right. ...

... I think it comes down to trying to rebuild native stocks of salmon and steelhead in some appropriate watersheds, without hatchery fish present. That would be ones that still have true native fish surviving, and have protectable habitat to give them an honest chance at a comeback. I don't know how many such rivers exist anymore - I think there are some, but not many. Those would be natural treasures worth every effort to revive and protect! Then there are watersheds on the opposite end of the spectrum, where there is extremely slim to no chance at rebuilding a genuine native fish runs indigenous to those watersheds. Unfortuantely, there are more of those than the former. These should be the put and take hatchery fish rivers most targeted primarily for sportfishing harvest. Then there is the rivers that lie somewhere between these two poles. I believe that these are the most numerous of watersheds. It is here that this mentioned "balance" should be sought. Any hatchery effort in such rivers (ones with a viable amount of native fish still present and just enough protectable habitat) should be via the brood stock programs that use live captured native fish stock for specific hatcheries to raise native progeny more efficiently than nature can do in the short term; producing fish with genetics essentially indigenous to a given river, and with the capability of natural spawning. This is going on now, while genetically impure hatchery smolts are being reduced. Good results are occuring in rivers such as the Siletz and Nestucca. Greater success will come as more is learned. Eventually enough of a run of 'essentially native' broodstock fish will occur, along with natural spawning of these true native runs, that populations of these successful rivers will allow limited harvest of native fish - with a sustainable yield of a self perpetuating run making a hatchery no longer needed there. This will take some time, money, and effort. I think it can be done - especially with the boost from mother nature we are getting in the ocean survival atmosphere that has been occuring for a couple years, and a few more to come to kick start these programs. The most challenging aspect, besides money issues, is for fish bios and other bios to classify all anadromous fish producing rivers accurately into each of those 3 catagories. Yes, there will be some small stray rate of non brood hatchery fish into the other 2 classes of rivers; but not likely enough to alter the dynamics much, if at all, because evidence is mounting that hatchery fish cannot successfully spawn with native fish - especially in another watershed. ... As for the 'money issues', it is not just getting allocated state and federal funds for these programs - it is dealing with the power of the Indian Tribes/commercial netters that demand/advocate maximum hatchery run capability. This affects a lot of the rivers that would be in the 'in between' catagory! We can get the commercial nets out of the Columbia, but not the Indian nets. Therefore, we must turn the tide of maximum harvestable fish run attitude of the Tribes into one compatible with the 'educated guess' outline. As for most of our coastal rivers of Oregon, be very thankful they are not affected by dams and netting! They are high among the ones worth every effort to revive and protect; with some in the 'in between' brood stock catagory for limited sport fish harvest.

[ 09-01-2001: Message edited by: RT ]

[HT Buzzo]

*** Clerk,

I enjoy your posts, but this is my first response. In your post about the Nestucca above, you site it as having relatively good habitat in comparison to other rivers with dams or ladders. How about relative to itself 100 or 200 years ago? I don't believe hatcheries are the only contributing factor in the steelhead decline on the Nestucca. I have seen cattle grazing and defecating within meters of its banks and the sediment-engorged run-off of its tributaries. It is logical that too much planting of inferior hatchery stock would disrupt the food chain all the way down. Science has proven this throughout history.
It is too bad hatchery rearing couldn't take place in a natural river environment without introducing different strains of fish. The eggs would have to be reared in the usual manner, but then raise the fish from fry up in a controlled creek-bed with flood control so nothing gets washed away. Survival wouldn't be as successful as planting 6-8 inch steelhead smolt, but the fish would be more genetically suited to the ecosystem. This has probably been attempted and failed already, but so far I have not witnessed or heard of a stream where the hatchery system has been dissolved and a native population erupted in health and vitality, at least not in Oregon. This is because there are too many other factors involved on a river ecosystem besides hatchery-rearing and the introduction of gentetically inferior stock. Many of the rivers I fish have been effected by this argument, and so far I have not witnessed a huge improvement- not on the North Santiam, Clackamas, or Fall Creek(Alsea). I wish the rivers could support healthy enough returns of wild fish for sport-fishing like they used to, but until then I think we should all watch with skepticism so as not to lose any vital resources.

HT

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

HT Buzzo

Thank you for your response. From a scientific standpoint you are very correct in calling me on several points, however the argument currently is an anecdotal exercise and thus allows some leeway. Your assessment of the current habitat conditions on the Nestucca is correct that relative to what is was several hundred years ago it is not what it should be, yet according to ODFW the Nestucca has some of the better habitat. The following exert is from a “borrowed” private correspondence from Thomas Gilg, ODFW A&E Board:

July 30th, 2001

“I have always found great variance in the attitude and progressiveness of "regional staff", be it ODFW district bios, USFS forest and ranger district managers, or BLM district and resource area managers. Recent discussions have convinced (me) that the Nestucca is NOT in one of the more progressive areas, as I had previously thought. Anyhow, in the sea of folks I know and trust, a consistent message was delivered in confidence to me about the Nestucca (you have been delivering roughly the same message to me) that can be summaried as follows:

Considering that the Nestucaa has better habitat than most coastal streams, and some of the salmonid runs are doing fairly well (e.g. Fall Chinook), where is the comprehensive integrated hatchery plan that justifies why we need to be dumping in so many hatchery spring chinook, fall chinook, out of basin summer steelhead and out of basin winter steelhead into the basin, and why in many cases is no attempt being made recapture/remove the excess hatchery fish?” (Thomas Gilg – A&E)

You are correct that there are many factors that currently influence salmon issues but as with the others issues we must begin to eliminate step by step what we currently believe is negatively impacting the health of our indigenous salmon. Hatcheries do harm in many ways. Although genetics seems to be arguably the most important long-term aspect, other problems caused by hatcheries include reduced organic nutrient loading of our rivers as well as the false sense that “we don’t need to save habitat, we can just build a hatchery”. This has been the easy, political answer to development in the past and now it has come to haunt us. With respect to native salmon runs and hatcheries, we Oregonians are kind of like a frog on a hot plate. If you drop a frog on a pre-heated hot plate he will quickly jump off, if you place the frog on the cold surface and slowly turn up the heat the frog will not jump off and will begin to cook. If one hundred years ago we went from having what some saw as a boundless resource, the huge number of indigenous salmon, to having endangered and threatened fish every where as well as only being able to harvest salmon produced by a hatchery we would make quick and drastic changes. But we have slowly crept up on the situation we have now. We have grown accustomed to the ratcheting down of our native resource and without dramatic change have not noticed the situation we are now in… sitting on a hot plate and starting to simmer…


Birdhunter

The habitat in the estuary and conditions in the ocean decide adult escapement not the rearing habitat in the rivers. Tossing in 50 thousand hatchery smolts into a river to starve to death in the estuary not only does not provide more returning adults but more than likely replaces a component of the wild run. Please site a scientific study that shows that hatcheries do not replace wild fish and produce more returning adults.

As to dams… I have a cool joke

What does a salmon say when it smacks its head into a concrete wall? … DAM!

The pendulum is swinging and we all need to give it a push in the right direction, you push yours and I will push mine. Hatcheries and resource managers have had their way for the past one hundred years basing their actions on the false assumption that hatcheries work. It is time for all of us to tell them to take their respective “ball” and go home. In the long run the fish and the fishermen would be better off.

I too am sorry if I come off too strong but like you this issue is near and dear to me as well.

*** Clerk

[DF]

I may be getting myself into trouble here..... but when im fishing and I catch a hatchery fish. Or my little brother catches a fish. Im just happy the fish are there. Hatchery or wild.
[img]images/icons/cool.gif[/img]

[birdhunter]

Crud. This was getting really good but I'm afraid I'm going to have to back out. I broke my wrist this weekend and am forced to hunt and peck for typing. This is about all I can manage for the time being. This isn't good. It's my right hand so that means no casting. Will I be sidelined for the silver season? I hope not. I'll try to get back to these issues when I can type efficently again. Best of luck out there.

[Point-of-Sale Clerk]

Birdhunter

Sorry to hear about your wrist. Hopefully it will mend fast.

Have the doctor put a large stainless steel hook on your cast and go fishing anyway… Look at it as a challenge and as a reason to buy a left hand retrieve reel.

We can discuss how bad hatcheries are some other time. I am sure hatcheries will not get any better in the interim.

*** Clerk.