NATIVE FISH SOCIETY IS THE WAY FORWARD FOR NATIVE WILD SALMONIDS

The Native Fish Society has an important mission that others believe in and support. We are making progress.  I have worked in native fish conservation for more than 40 years and have spent time with legislators in my constant effort to strengthen and fund conservation.  Senator Jan Wyers responded in the 1980s by funding five native fish conservation positions at ODFW.  It was though that program that key people were hired and important work for Oregon’s wild salmonids was accomplished.  In 2012 the legislature is again concerned about the future of wild salmonids as more and more populations are  protected under the ESA and others are lost forever.  The NFS Hatchery Accountability Project clearly states that there needs to be better accountability for biological and cost impacts of hatchery programs. There have been two hearings this session and in the next session our goal is to hold the agency accountable. 

At one time it was possible to expect administrative solutions to problems affecting native fish management by government agencies, but that has changed, so legal action is necessary to force the government  to follow its own rules and comply with state and federal law.  This is why we have put ODFW on notice to clean-up its Sandy Hatchery program so that wild winter steelhead, coho, fall chinook and spring chinook are protected and a path is opened up for their recovery under the ESA.   A 76% stray rate of hatchery spring chinook into the wild chinook spawning grounds is not acceptable under state or federal rules and it needs to be corrected. 

We are in Stevenson Washington tonight defending the management program for recovery of wild summer steelhead in Wind River.  This run has been protected as a wild steelhead management river since 1982, but there is local pressure for a stock and kill fishery.  We are involved in these public meetings to make sure that the Wind River wild summer steelhead continue to rebuild and eventually recover.

The NFS is working for wild salmon, steelhead and trout throughout the Northwest through direct action and by supporting the good work of other groups.  Our volunteer river stewards are working in their communities for healthy watersheds and native fish.  It is a big job and for a small organization and it can seem wild and wooly, but we are undaunted in our efforts and we have a record of success when we take time to look in the rear-view mirror. 

I am committed to the future of the Native Fish Society because it is an effective advocate for native wild fish in the Northwest.  We base our advocacy on the best available science and there is a lot of it being published that has direct bearing on our conservation work.  We have a history of success but we could do better with more funding and more folks to push our advocacy program forward.  The point is that as we grow our funding base we do so without sacrificing our mission for native wild fish.   The organization and its leadership have made that commitment and with the support of our members and friends we can be successful in solving complex and difficult problems for wild native fish in the region. 

Making Hatcheries More Accountable

Summary Comment

By Bill Bakke

For the Senate Environment and Natural Resource Committee

Oregon Legislature

January 18, 2012

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The accumulated evidence from both scientific and economic analysis over the last 130 years shows that salmon and steelhead are declining and that management investments have failed to mitigate for the loss and have been unable to recover the diversity, productivity, and abundance of wild salmonids in Oregon and the Northwest ecosystems that support them.  This evidence suggests that our response and our investments to curb this decline are not working.  They are not working because we are more concerned about hatchery production than with restoring the productivity and resilience of salmonid populations adapted to individual watersheds. 

The solution appears to be deceptively simple, but it isn’t because the institutions we fund with public money and rely upon to solve complex problems of salmon and steelhead recovery and watershed productivity have not been held accountable for their performance. 

The Legislature can help solve this problem by directing the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife to enlist the aid of the Department of Administrative Services to contract for a risk and benefit assessment of the fish propagation program by an independent outside source with the necessary expertise to do the work.  Funding for this assessment is currently available in surpluses to ODFW’s Commercial Fish Fund and Other Fund accounts.  It is appropriate that fishing interests, who are the direct beneficiaries of the hatchery program, be the ones to pay for the cost of assessing the benefits and risks of the hatchery program.

The Legislature should also add a performance measure for the agency that would establish a process to assure the Legislature that ODFW is complying with the recommendations that come out of this assessment of the hatchery program.

These actions are needed because the evidence points out these facts:

1. Salmon and steelhead are 3 to 5 percent of their historic abundance
2. Many populations are threatened with extinction and under federal protection
3. Hatchery fish survival is only about 10% of that for wild salmonids with a range of 6-45 percent
4. Hatchery fish contribute to the decline of wild salmonids
5. Many if not most hatchery programs are deficit spending programs
6. Hatchery productivity and cost effectiveness rely on having access to wild stocks
7. As hatchery costs increase and benefits decline funding will become a more critical problem
8. Continuing the conflict between hatchery performance and cost with wild salmonid productivity and recovery will continue to have a substantial impact on Oregon’s fishing economy  

HATCHERY SALMON AND STEELHEAD WASTE HABITAT

HATCHERY FISH WASTE HABITAT

“In the Clackamas River basin, the summer steelhead hatchery adults had poor reproductive success; fewer smolts were produced per parent than in the wild population, and almost no offspring of hatchery fish survived to adulthood (Kostow et al. 2003). The hatchery program was meant to provide a sport fishery, and the production of adult offspring was not intended. If successful hatchery reproduction had occurred, at least the offspring could have contributed to fisheries. Instead, the hatchery fish wasted basin capacity by occupying habitat and depressing wild production while producing nothing useful themselves. It is not unusual for hatchery adults to have poor reproductive success when they spawn naturally (other examples are provided by Reisenbichler and Rubin 1999, Kostow 2004, and McLean et al. 2004). The combined effect of poor hatchery fish fitness and depressed wild fish production due to competition with the hatchery fish poses a double jeopardy that could quickly erode natural production in any system.” 

Kostow & Zhou (2006) page 839:

Not only do hatchery fish waste habitat, making it less productive than it would be with wild salmon and steelhead spawners, the investments made in habitat restoration are also wasted when the habitat is over-run with naturally spawning hatchery fish.  When the benefits of habitat restoration are calculated the impact of hatchery fish on those benefits is never included. Habitat restoration is based on the dual premise that it improves the productivity of wild salmonids and that it is cost effective. It is also assumed that habitat is limiting in all cases and that to increase the production of wild salmonids habitat investment is necessary.  Because habitat restoration is typically not done within the context of fishery management by government agencies such factors as harvest and hatchery impacts are not addressed and the limitations these actions impose on the success of habitat investment is not acknowledged, evaluated and monitored.  

It is important that habitat restoration serves the fish, improves watershed productivity and benefits other wildlife and not become an official deception.  Habitat restoration should not be used by agencies to escape their accountability to protect wild salmonids and the healthy watersheds they require to be self-sustaining.

Hatchery Impacts on Wild Salmon and Steelhead

The following summary is my attempt to provide each of my readers with a well documented list of impacts that hatcheries impose on wild salmonids.  This information will allow you to understand the hatchery reform needed to reduce impacts on wild salmonids.  In the Northwest fish management has embraced the hatchery option for over 130 years as a way to "mitigate" for watershed development at the expense of wild salmon and steelhead.  This approach has promoted the degradation of watersheds and is forcing the replacement of wild native stocks with artificially propagated fish that have reduced reproductive success and interfere with the health and productivity of wild salmonids.  What is missing in the Northwest is a wild native salmonid conservation program that effectively protects wild salmonid productivity, identity, and abundance.

The listing of wild stocks under the federal ESA has resulted in little benefit to wild salmon and steelhead populations but it has justified $1 Billion in annual funding for salmon recovery.  The ESA has expanded the hatchery solution to wild salmon decline and the fish management agencies have been the primary beneficiaries of this annual flow of public tax dollars into the region.

It should be kept in mind that the primary goal of fish management agencies is not recovery of wild salmonids but to maintain an endless process of planning and the funding it provides.  The goal is process not conservation and recovery.  The only way that this perversion of the ESA will come to an end is when the wild salmon go extinct or are recovered.  Another way, of course, is causing the agencies to be accountable for their programs, actions and expenditures.  That requires oversight by government.  It takes an independent review to make the agency bosses uncomfortable.

The brief summary on the impacts of hatchery production below is focused on how hatcheries affect the viability of wild salmonids.  It needs to be expanded to include harvest reform measures, but it does capture the need to have minimum spawner abundance objectives that would be delivered by species for each watershed as purpose of harvest management.  These science based recommendations are sound and they can be done, but the fish managers are not comfortable applying science to their management, so progress will be resisted and defeated without a strong push by those interested in wild salmon and steelhead recovery.

HATCHERY SALMONID IMPACTS ON WILD SALMONIDS

By Bill Bakke

• Naturally spawning hatchery fish from long term hatchery cultivation produce 6-11% to the adult stage compared to wild fish. ( Leider et al. 1989, Araki et al 2006)

• In the first generation native broodstock hatchery fish (using wild steelhead for hatchery broodstock) the reproductive success of the hatchery fish spawning naturally in streams declines by 14% (males) and 2% (females) compared to wild fish spawning naturally in the river. (ISRP 2011)

• In later generations (second and third) the reproductive success of native broodstock hatchery steelhead spawning naturally in streams is 50% (males) lower and 77% (females) lower than naturally spawning wild fish. (ISRP 2011) 

• There is a genetic change in the hatchery steelhead that carries over to naturally produced progeny of hatchery-origin parents causing reduced reproductive fitness of wild-born descendants in the wild and the population fitness of subsequent generations. (Araki et al. 2009, ISRP 2011)

• In just 6 generations native broodstock hatchery steelhead reproductive success is 29% to 54% that of wild steelhead. (Berntson 2011)

• In order to maintain cost effective hatchery programs, access to healthy abundant wild steelhead populations is required. (Based on research by Araki et al. 2008)

• In order to protect and rebuild wild salmon and steelhead populations harvest targeted on hatchery fish must be regulated to protect wild spawner abundance, spawner abundance goals need to be adopted by species and watershed, hatchery transfers among watershed need to be eliminated, and naturally spawning hatchery fish need to be excluded from wild fish spawning areas. (Conclusions base on best available science)

• Impacts of hatchery fish on wild fish must be controlled so that competition for food and space for rearing juveniles in streams and the estuary support wild fish survival, predation and predator attraction by hatchery fish is controlled to protect survival of wild fish, and nutrient enrichment targets from natural spawning wild fish support and expand the productive capacity of the habitat. (Conclusion based on best available science)

• Competition between wild and hatchery fish spawning naturally in a common habitat can reduce the production of wild juveniles by 50% (Kostow  2004)

• The cost to produce a hatchery steelhead that contributes to the catch is $200 to over $400 per fish harvested.   Most hatchery programs funded with tax dollars are not cost effective, making the hatchery program vulnerable to loss of funding as hatcheries compete for funding with other social needs for available dollars. .  (Hans Radtke 2011, IEAB 2000)

HOW AGENCIES DEFEAT PUBLIC INITIATIVES

INSTITUTIONAL SELECTION

We have all heard of natural selection, a concept created by Charles Darwin in 1859. It is the primary way in which animals and plants adapt to their environments through sexual reproduction.

There is another form of selection having to do with cultural forces, a system of beliefs, assumptions, and values. Institutional selection imposes compliance among people in agencies and business. If one wants to rise within the institution a clear record of compliance to institutional values and beliefs is required. These selective factors are often unspoken, but those who want the institutional rewards are nonetheless very much aware of them.

Public agencies are influenced by having to be responsive to public concerns and involve the public in policy development. The problem for the agency is that the public can interfere with agency culture. They are constantly having to deal with public proposals and are obligated to hold public hearings on issues that can result in agency change. For this reason public agencies have developed a sophisticated resistance to outside interference. As one administrator once told me if you poke us too much in one direction, we build a callus.

The first level of resistance comes when the agency is confronted with a policy change over how it administers its system of assumptions, beliefs and values. The public initiatives arrive without invitation from outside the agency. As one director of the Oregon fish and wildlife department once said, “we can recover salmon if the public would just stay out of our business.” This candid burp was rather revealing for its honesty.

Public agencies are also burdened with a commission that can, when they feel forced, be responsive to public initiatives to change agency policy. The commission is always a wild card that the agency staff is constantly worried about, for it could mean a reflexive change in the why things are done, so they spend a lot of time tuning the commission up to support staff’s natural abhorrence to any change whatsoever. But change happens and the agency has developed a way to slow change down and defeat it, if given enough time.

The first thing that staff does with cooperation of its legal department is make sure that any policy change has no clauses of accountability embedded in it, something the public can use to pester the agency about non-compliance through the courts. So all policy changes are cleansed of deadlines, deliverables, numerical values or anything else that the public can use to threatened the status quo of agency operations.

Another useful tactic is to know your public. This is necessary because the agency is often called upon to assemble a public advisory group to help in the process of policy development. A useful precautionary tactic is to stack public advisory groups with people who are supportive of the agency status quo, but to appear non-partial they appoint one or at the most two people who are progressive in their views knowing they can be controlled or out voted. A novel refinement of this tactic is to invite people who are opposed to the agency altogether. They are useful in creating conflict with the feared change makers giving the agency the middle ground. For example, when deciding the Native Fish Conservation Policy, the ODFW invited the private property advocates to the table. These folks were opposed to fish protection because they believed private use of land was threatened. Including them on a committee to develop conservation plans for the protection of native species insured conflict. This was an unusually perceptive adjustment by staff to protect the agency status quo for it created a strong opposition to those seeking a strong conservation policy and at the same time gave the agency staff the middle ground. The staff ran shuttle diplomacy between the two opposing groups in the committee, telling each one what they wanted to hear, thus strengthening the conflict. This increased the agency capacity to maintain the status quo.

Another artful dodge is to maintain a policy in draft form for as long as possible so that it is not binding on the agency and no matter how hard the public might press them to implement the policy, the agency reminds them that it is only a draft.

These tactics are for the single purpose of protecting the agency from change, especially those threats generated by the public.

Once a policy development committee is seated, it is obvious to the agency staff that change is inevitable, so additional tactics are necessary to slow change down.

The second level of resistance is to not implement or make implementation impossibly slow so that those wanting change get busy on other things and public pressure is dissipated. Too often the public assumes that once a policy is adopted by the agency and becomes administrative law, that the agency will practice due diligence and implement that policy. The public spends a lot of time in policy development but attention wanes when it comes to carrying out the policy on the ground.

When the Oregon department of fish and wildlife adopted the Oregon Wild Fish Management Policy in 1978 and revised it several times later to remove legal handles that could prove inconvenient, it was discovered that the policy was not actually being applied agency wide. The policy was never popular and it was left up to staff to implement if they wanted to do so. The environmental advocates for this policy assumed that it was being applied across the state to provide protection for wild fish and were shocked to find out that it was an elective.

When the public was successful in convincing the commission to implement a slot regulation for Deschutes River trout fishery, one agency administrator complained that ODFW no longer managed the Deschutes, the public did. The slot regulation did away with bait and allowed a restricted kill of trout in number and size. This lead to a catch and release fishery, which is not favored by an agency that believes a kill fishery is the only way to sell licenses.

The following is provided to show just how strong resistance to institutional change can be. The Oregon Legislature passed a state law that said it is the obligation of the fish and wildlife department and commission to “prevent the serious depletion of indigenous (native) species.” Serious depletion was not defined so the agency had plenty of interpretation room to avoid compliance. The ODFW commission got into the act and said that the law also directed the agency to provide social benefits and concluded that conservation was balanced by the requirement to provide those benefits such as harvested fish. They developed a code for killing fish called “fishing opportunity.”

At the request of the public, the Oregon Attorney General’s office provided the ODFW with its assessment of this statute in 1997 and again in 2003. In those legal reviews the agency was told that its “overriding obligation is to prevent the serious depletion of indigenous species” and the agency is unable to provide social benefits unless this happened. Thus, the balancing argument of the ODFW commission was set aside, but their dedication for it was not.

Also at the public’s request, the ODFW director distributed the 1997 legal opinion from the AG’s to the staff so they would be fully informed about the law and their obligation to it. However, this law did not mesh well with the understood institutional mission of the agency by staff. One did not advance their careers by being an advocate for wild fish. One staff person who left ODFW told me he left because he did not like getting in trouble for following the rules.

In 2003 the AG’s office once again reminded the agency of its overriding obligation to protect native species from serious depletion as they sought to adopt the Native Fish Conservation Policy. In 2010 this state law still has no real traction within the agency in their day to day management. It was disturbing when a commissioner told me that he did not know how to deal with this responsibility.

It can be argued that when the state assigns a species as sensitive, which means it is precarious and vulnerable to extinction, or when a species is provided protection under the federal Endangered Species Act, that it is certainly seriously depleted. With regard to ESA-listed species, the states must get coverage from the National Marine Fisheries Service to run its hatchery and harvest programs. This would appear to be a serious check on any agency’s institutional mission, but it isn’t, for even though the federal agency requires the agency to justify its actions, it is not often different from what the agency would have done anyway. The only difference is the additional paper work.

In the state of Washington, the WDFW commission adopted a Wild Salmonid Policy. The director that led this adoption struggle and the staff person that drafted the policy lost their job soon after this policy was adopted. Since its adoption, the agency has quietly ignored it for it requires change in hatchery and harvest structures that have been in place a long time.

More recently, the WDFW commission adopted a Wild Steelhead Management Plan. This plan calls for Wild Steelhead Management Zones to be adopted. The public requested this and was successful. However, when asked why there has been little movement in setting up Wild Steelhead Management Zones, including the 20 that the public recommended, they are given a number of reasons.

The first artful dodge is that this policy is still in draft form so it is not binding on the agency. That reasoning inflames the public so other reasons had to be found. Since their co-managers, Native American tribes, did not sign this policy, the agency cannot implement it. That is a better excuse because someone else is to blame. When reminded that the WDFW has an obligation to secure 50% of the available harvest for its constituents in a shared resource with the tribes, there is ample room to provide for wild steelhead management zones. When the public advocates are willing to forgo harvest to increase the spawner abundance of steelhead in these WSMZs it is unreasonable to allow the tribes to harvest the forgone and so-called surplus from the recreational fishery. But because the agency does not establish a steelhead harvest management plan prior to the fishery starting, it claims there is no power to make changes to protect spawners and achieve spawner escapement goals in each river that is co-managed. So the agency, by not doing its job creates an excuse to harvest all the fish, including those needed for spawning. In order to do this and still appear to be managers of good faith, the recreational fishery is closed while the tribal fishery continues to fish. The conclusion is that wild steelhead are not getting the needed protection.

In lower Puget Sound hatchery fish harvest zones were created to maximize the harvest of hatchery coho. Wild coho spawner objectives by watershed have not been established because that would interfere with the harvest of hatchery fish. A recent petition to list wild coho in Puget Sound by the public is an attempt to correct this problem. By not protecting wild spawner abundance the WDFW is ignoring the best available science that has been in place for 72 years following the research of Willis Rich.

The conflict over conservation of native wild fish populations is created by the fish management agencies. As one retired ODFW biologist told me, wild fish and their habitat are irrelevant to the agency. They manage by a simple model of stocking hatchery fish and running kill fisheries. If one challenges that, one threatens the institution that is based on an industrial model of production and consumption where wild fish are considered a constraint on commodity production.

Fish and wildlife agencies have developed an elaborate resistance to changing their institutional structure of beliefs, assumptions and values. Even though they are public agencies they have created proven ways to blunt the effect of public reform efforts. They have rationalized state laws when they are in conflict with agency operations. They are able to do this because elected officials such as legislators, Congress, and governors, are not interested in resolving the problem.

The public makes its demands and it can have a modest effect on the institutional culture of fish management, but unless the public is fully engaged constantly, agencies find a way to step around and reduce the effect of the changes. The public cannot assume the fish management agency will follow through on its commitments, tell the truth or follow the law, and for that reason, the public needs to be organized so that it is applying pressure constantly year after year to make sure conservation policies are implemented.

Most public groups are themselves not organized to be vigilant protectors of Nature. For one thing policy development and accountability do not sell as well to foundations as do “shovel ready” short tem action projects that have a short life span. First the environmental groups need to make a commitment to follow through on policy development and implementation and find the donors that will help make that commitment a real force for conservation. The other important thing to do is work to elect public officials that actually care about how the state and the nation is protecting the environment and to have elected officials leverage the public’s concern for protecting nature.

Lacking that commitment the public groups are constantly fighting a rear-guard action plan and responding to crisis issues. This means that the agencies will not be reformed, and in the case of salmon, wild native species will not be recovered and there will be no end of populations being listed as endangered species and the rapid rate of extinction will not be addressed. Public agencies are organized to serve the narrow interests of their constituents rather than maintain the productivity and benefits of natural resources they are charged with protecting for the public good.

Recommended Reading:

Jim Lichatowich, Salmon Without Rivers

Lichatowich and Williams, Failure to incorporated science into fishery management (see the Native Fish Society web page for this article)

Rick Scarce, Fishy Business

WILD STEELHEAD MORTALITY AND GEAR TYPE

In 2001 Bob Hooton, fish biologist for the British Columbia Ministry of Environment, evaluated the impact of bait, lures and flies on steelhead and resident fish. This paper reviews what is known through scientific evaluation of relative impacts of these fishing types.  I have provided a few interesting quotes form this paper below.

“During the Keogh River experiment, it quickly became evident that, in order to obtain the requisite sample size of steelhead hooked on artificial lures, it was necessary to commence angling sessions with that gear type.  Despite a strong bias towards artificial lure fishing prior to using bait, lures caught 99 fish while bait produced 236 or 2.38 times as many for similar hours fished.  Additionally artificial lures caught fish were hooked deep inside the mouth or gill arches and bleeding heavily in 4 of 99 cases (4.04%).  Bait caught fish were similarly hooked in 26 of 236 records (11.02%) or 2.72 times as often.”

“During the Keogh hooking mortality study discussed earlier a total of 130 and 206 

steelhead were angled in study years 1985 and 1986 respectively (Hooton, 1987). The

weir count of adult steelhead over the period that angling occurred downstream from the

fence was used to provide a reasonable approximation of the percentage of the run

captured in the time allocated. In 1985, the data revealed that project staff fished 117

hours to catch 130 steelhead that represented about 27% of the fish available. In 1986,

121 hours were angled to catch 206 fish that represented about 19% of the supply. In

other words two anglers fishing an average of one hour per day over a two month period

caught roughly one quarter of the population one year and one fifth the next. All of that

occurred in about 50 meters (164 feet) of river.”

“More recently Keogh project technicians involved in requisite sampling of steelhead

upstream from an electronic counter captured 45%, 62% and 30% of the total available

supply of steelhead in 1998, 1999 and 2000 respectively. For 2001 to date the figure

stands at 51% (personal communication, Bruce Ward, Senior Anadromous Biologist,

Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, University of BC, Vancouver). These catch

rates resulted from two staff fishing for an hour or two per day over several kilometers of

a river that is not held to be particularly accessible or “fishable” by most steelhead

anglers. All of the fish were angled with bait.”

“What we can say, however, is that angling with baited hooks is prevalent in streams

where it is legal, that angling with bait generally results in substantially higher catch rates

and mortality rates for both target and non-target fish than angling with any other gear

type, that many of the wild steelhead stocks subjected to this combination of factors are

far below target escapement and that the status of non-target stocks and/or species is

frequently as bad or worse than steelhead.”

“Catch and release may have been oversold in that there tends to be a pervasive opinion it can be prosecuted limitlessly with no influence on the status or health of steelhead or sympatric species. With respect to fluvial resident trout populations it was accepted long ago fish are too catchable and prone to hooking mortality to sustain fishing with certain gear types. Resident fish are simply that – stationary inhabitants of the available habitat. Arguably, steelhead in most of British Columbia’s short coastal streams, are effectively resident trout. Their vulnerability is entirely comparable to fluvial resident trout.”

Rearing juvenile steelhead and resident fish are affected by gear type:

“With respect to fluvial resident trout populations it was accepted long ago fish are too catchable and prone to hooking mortality to sustain fishing with certain gear types. Resident fish are simply that – stationary inhabitants of the available habitat. Arguably, steelhead in most of British Columbia’s short coastal streams, are effectively resident trout. Their vulnerability is entirely comparable to fluvial resident trout.”

““Bruesewitz (1995, WDFW) examined the location of hooking among creeled summer and winter steelhead in different Washington State streams in the 1992, 1993 and 1994 sport fisheries. She found that the single hook and bait combination resulted in a 2.33 times higher incidence of hooking in critical locations (14.9% versus 6.4%) than did single hooks and artificial lures.”

Exposure to air and mortality rate:

“Ferguson and Tufts (1993) reported disturbingly higher mortality among domestic

rainbow trout subjected to air exposure after mimicked angling events than for control

fish or experimental fish not exposed to air. Their data revealed 100% survival among

control fish and 88% survival among exercised (i.e., “angled”) fish. Among fish that were

exercised and then exposed to air for 30 and 60 seconds immediately thereafter,

survival dropped to 62% and 28% respectively. The authors stressed their results had

important implications for Atlantic salmon sport fisheries where the marked trend was

toward catch and release but where anglers habitually hold fish out of water for

significant periods of time prior to release.

Influence of multiple captures on fish mortality:

“The influence of multiple captures of individual steelhead is another element of many

British Columbia steelhead fisheries that remains to be evaluated. Catch and tag

recovery data from a large number and range of Ministry programs indicate that in many

heavily fished streams steelhead are commonly caught two or more times. It is

reasonable to conclude the frequency of these occurrences has increased steadily over

the past two decades. The emerging and unanswered questions are whether or not

there are cumulative effects associated with multiple captures and how significant these

are from a population perspective? It is clear from the available CPUE (and mortality

rate) data presented above, however, that any risk of sub-lethal effects associated with

multiple captures would be skewed markedly toward gear types and procedures that

increased an individual fish’s frequency of exposure to those circumstances.”

Hatchery fish increase angling pressure and wild steelhead mortality

“Close examination of Steelhead Harvest Analysis (SHA) data reveals a consistent pattern on streams where hatchery steelhead have been introduced. The years immediately following first returns of harvestable hatchery fish display pronounced

increases in angling effort and record high estimates of wild steelhead caught and

released (mandatory). Catches tend to have been sustained despite conclusive

evidence of declining abundance in index streams.”

Anglers can choose to protect wild steelhead

“The angling community may wish to contemplate leaving a smaller and softer

footprint on all wild fish or risk the steady erosion of longer term opportunity. A sobering

reality is that the trends in stream fishing opportunity throughout virtually all of

southwestern British Columbia have manifested themselves in a very few generations of

steelhead. Ignoring history and assuming trends will be stabilized or reversed in the

absence of attention to fishing impacts is unlikely to produce a desirable outcome.”

HATCHERY STEELHEAD IMPACT WILD STEELHEAD

In a recent conversation with an executive of the ODFW fish division about releasing hatchery steelhead in the Sandy River, Oregon, the assertion was made that these hatchery fish had no impact on wild steelhead.  That is a statement of fact, so I asked for the supporting data.  After a bit of dithering, he admitted that this conclusion was indeed only an assumption. 

Apparently, biologists that hold important political positions within an agency or those that have an agenda regardless of their pecking order within the agency, feel comfortable making factual statements even though they have no facts to back them up.  Typically, the public has been conditioned to accept a strongly stated assertion at face value.  After all, why would they lie?  The public trust is easily violated by agenda driven agency functionaries. 

Years of scientific studies costing thousands of dollars have shown that the release of hatchery steelhead has an impact on the health, abundance, and status of wild steelhead in our rivers.  The public pays for these studies and should expect that what is learned would be applied to management decsions by government agencies, but there is no obligation for an agency or its personnel to use this information in their work.  

What are some of the facts about releasing hatchery steelhead in streams already occupied by wild steelhead? 

“Hatchery steelhead displaced wild O. mykiss in 79% of the contests observed between these groups. Our results indicate that the behavior of hatchery steelhead can pose risks to preexisting wild O. mykiss where the two interact.”

That is a startling fact discovered in 1999 by McMichael and others doing a study of hatchery and wild steelhead interactions on the Yakima River.  That fact was documented 12 years ago.  I wonder why it the ODFW biologist did not use it to at least question his assumption that releasing hatchery steelhead had no effect on wild steelhead in Oregon?  Maybe he did not know about this study and maybe since it was from a Yakima River study in the state of Washington, it somehow does not apply to Oregon rivers. 

What else did the scientists find out about hatchery steelhead impacts on wild steelhead in the Yakima River?

“Strategies to minimize undesirable risks associated with behavior of released hatchery steelhead should be addressed if protection and restoration of wild steelhead stocks is the management goal.”

That is interesting.  Maybe this ODFW biologist is not interested in the protection and restoration of wild steelhead in the Sandy River?  But I am sure he must be concerned for after all the wild steelhead are threatened with extinction and their recovery is his responsibility. His agency has even underscored that responsibility in the form of policy when in 2003 the ODFW commission adopted a rule that says protection of native fish is the primary goal of the agency.   Even Oregon state law directs the agency to prevent the serious depletion of native species.  That has been confirmed by the Oregon Department of Justice to mean that the department and the commission have an overriding obligation to prevent the depletion of native species.  I would be surprised if this legal direction did not also include agency biologists and executives. 

I was surprised by the comment of an ODFW biologist that had left the agency for another in state government.  When I asked him why he had left ODFW he simply replied: “I wanted to work for an agency where I did not get in trouble for following the rules.”

Reference

McMichael, Geoffrey A.; Todd N. Pearsons; Steven A. Leider. 1999. Behavioral interactions among hatchery-reared steelhead smolts and wild Oncorhynchus mykiss in natural streams. North American Journal of Fisheries Management. Vol. 19, Issue 4. pages 948-956.