By Jennifer Langston
Herald Writer
Fish hatcheries on the Stillaguamish and Snohomish rivers may change the way they operate — and get new money for upgrades — based on recommendations released Tuesday.
A team of scientists released suggestions to help hatcheries in the Puget Sound region produce adequate runs of hatchery fish that tribes and fisherman can catch without harming wild, native fish.
Gov. Gary Locke pledged to include $8 million in his economic stimulus package to help upgrade hatcheries, and the state’s top wildlife official promised to implement the reforms.
As part of the Hatchery Reform Project funded by Congress two years ago, scientists reviewed 15 state and tribal hatchery programs in Snohomish County alone. They recommend nearly 100 specific changes.
Those include suspending some efforts until they can determine whether hatchery salmon are intermingling with wild stocks, upgrading some hatcheries and rearing ponds to reduce death rates and the spread of disease, and ending some planting programs that aren’t beneficial.
The report also proposes establishing wild steelhead management zones, or areas where hatchery steelhead would not be introduced. Specific stretches of river have not been selected yet, so it’s not clear how that would affect Snohomish County’s popular steelhead runs.
Fish raised in hatcheries can thwart the survival of wild salmon and steelhead, competing for food and space if they’re in the same stretch of river at the same time.
They also can weaken the genetic purity of wild fish, specially adapted to a particular river or environment, by breeding with them. Hatchery managers in decades past indiscriminately transplanted fish from one lake or river to another.
Because of those problems, some wild salmon advocates have lobbied for hatcheries to be closed or for production to be vastly curtailed. But tribes and fishermen rely on hatchery fish for their catches.
"With such strong and competing views, this could have turned into a very ugly fight over the Endangered Species Act," U.S. Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., said Tuesday. She praised the Hatchery Reform Project as a collaborative model in which the state, tribes and independent scientists worked to find solutions.
Washington state Department of Wildlife Director Jeff Koenings said in some cases hatcheries have been managed to the detriment of wild fish. But he said that doesn’t have to be the case.
"We’ve moved beyond that in time to correct our mistakes and basically have a hatchery system that can produce fish and at the same time not impact wild salmon populations," he said.
Hatcheries in Washington produce nearly 100 million juvenile salmon and steelhead a year for sport and commercial fishermen, as well as to fulfill tribal treaty rights. Those fisheries contribute about $1 billion to the state’s economy, Koenings said.
In the past, a hatchery’s success was largely measured by sheer volume, or how many fish were released. Now hatcheries are being encouraged to put more stock in how many — and what kinds — of fish make it back to the river to spawn.
"We need to be spending more resources and effort on producing quality of fish rather than quantity of fish," said Lars Mobrand, chairman of the Hatchery Scientific Review Group. "But it’s a tricky thing when the end result comes several years after these fish were released. It’s really easy to look at the number and pounds of fish that leave."
You can call Herald Writer Jennifer Langston at 425-339-3452
or send e-mail to langston@heraldnet.com.
The complete report on the Hatchery Reform Project’s recommendations is available on the Internet at www.longlivethekings.org/hatcheryreform.html#reform.
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