Is “sue and settle” really “science” for wild steelhead ?
The stated purpose of the Wild Fish Conservancy, The Conservation Angler, The Wild Steelhead Coalition, and the Native Fish Society is to eliminate hatchery plants of steelhead by establishing wild steelhead gene banks, and turn these steelhead rivers into catch-and-release fisheries.
They persuade us with vocabulary attractive to our self-identified smarter than, more sensitive than citizens — “diverse,” “extinct,” “wild steelhead genebank,” “wild fish recovery.” They disingenuously conflate the terms “wild” and “native.” Neglect to inform us all release of hatchery steelhead in Puget Sound rivers is suspended through 2015 by the WDFW. What they do not cite is any direct, dispositive and credible scientific foundation to support their claim that the elimination of hatchery fish will rebound the “wild” strains of steelhead in our rivers.
After the Wild Fish Conservancy’s “sue and settle” lawsuit in 2014, the entire Skagit River system is now a gene bank. Comparing the hatchery-fish-free Skagit with the 180,000 hatchery smolts permitted in the Skykomish River would have provided science for gene bank theories. But science is not the goal of these organizations. The goal is for us smarter than, more sensitive than useful idiots to demand more catch-and-release gene banks.
For almost 100 years some Chambers Creek or other hatchery broodstock steelhead have been spawning with native steelhead rather than returning to the hatchery. Hybrid surviving smolts along with the pure “native” smolts, if any now, swim to the ocean and return to spawn identified by their adipose fin as “wild” fish. But “wild” does not mean “native.” “Wild” could be anything from 100 percent native steelhead genes, to 100 percent hatchery genes, or both to an unknown degree. Are unknown gene banks useful? Sure, to take away recreation and livelihood by the expansion of catch and release.
Rather than pay attention to those who threaten WDFW and NOAA with further “sue and settle” lawsuits, allow the professional adults in those agencies to manage steelhead. That makes the only sense to this useful idiot.
Robert R. Rohrberg
Everett
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