Fishing with Rod Discussion Forum
Fishing in British Columbia => General Discussion => Topic started by: Grub on December 08, 2005, 01:47:24 PM
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According to big steel "all the hatchery steelhead should be killed so that they do not breed with wild stock"
Ive noticed that a large distiction has been made by some between hatchery and wild steelhead. Some seem to think that wild steehead are a far superior race to the lowly finless hatchery fish. Is there any evidence that suggests the hatchery fish pose any danger to "wild" fish?
From what I know the only thing unwild about hatchery steelhead is that they are hatched and partialy reared in hatcheries. Once the cliped fish are releaed they spend their marine life just as uncliped fish. They eat the same food, make the same migrations, and escape the same preditors as the so called "wild" fish. In other words steelhead with out adipose fins are just as fit or "wild" as fish with all their fins intact. Thus hatchery raised fish should have the right to breed with the "wild" fish.
Would releasing a hatchery steelhead for the puropse of increaseing the brood stock be a mark agianst conservation?
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oops wrong forum please move to general dis
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Hatchery steelhead are there for the puropse of increaseing the brood stock. Think of how much the wild numbers have grown ever since the hatchery program has been introduced.
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If just taking genetics into consideration there is a few things to keep in mind.
A systerm with 2 pair of fish in the wild only has 2 genetic combination. However in the hatchery it will be 4 combinations. Hatchery try to mix a number of fish egg and sperm to allow for high genetic variation. However, during hatching to smolts, hatchery has higher survival rate in comparison to wild. So only 500 pairs of fish is required to achieve a release rate of 1.5 million fish. But in the wild to achieve 1.5 million smolts you need thousands of pairs of fish. This translate to higher genetic pool than that of hatchery.
So in an endangered system with still a healty number of parent genetic sample, it is ideal to let the wild build it's on population. However, if there is only a handful left in the system leaving them along to reproduce may not be the best choice.
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Hatchery fish are not meant to augment the numbers of returning wild fish. In fact they do quite the opposite, as hatchery numbers increase wild numbers decrease. Why? Simple answer, hatchery fish are competing with wild fish for limited habitat and food. As for hatchery fish being inferior, I think it is reasonable to say that in a hatchery envioronment juveniles are protected from conditions which in the wild would normally kill off all but the most fit. When these returning hatchery fish return and spawn in the wild they are depositing the genes of fish which are not fit for survival out in the wild. In other words, these returning hatchery fish are not meant to be alive in the wild and are passing on their legacy to wild fish.
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Is there any scientific evidence that suggests that hatchery raised steelhead cannont reproduce as well as wild fish under natural cercumstances?
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Don't know. But personally I believe ( at least) the first generation hathery should grows as well as that of the wild. Mind you, they are from the 'fit' to survive wild stock.
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I question this perception that allowing hatchery fish to spawn in the wild is detrimental to the wild stocks.
Recently, my brother-in-law and his friends spent a week camping and fishing the Harrison. They caught and released so many wild coho but not one hatchery coho. During their trip they met up with a fisheries officer and asked him about that. The officer told them that most of the fish that they were catching probably were hatchery but didn't have their adipose clipped upon release because of lack of manpower and funds. This would indicate to me that fisheries is not to concerned about hatchery fish (disguised as wild fish) enterring the ecosystem.
Furthermore, I believe that only wild stock are used to breed each new generation of hatcheries. And I would also guess that fisheries officers would tend to take the more superior wild fish (bigger, stronger) for hatchery breeding which would only help to improve the overall genetic pool. Isn't that what happened with the current Chinooks in the Vedder?
Finally, I would think that the number of hatchery mating pairs is quite small to the number of wild mating pairs, so the better early survival rate of hatcheries should not result in any significant overall dilution of the gene pool.
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I don't see how it could be a dilution of the gene pool. They are part of the same gene pool. If they were fish from different systems then maybe, but hatchery and wild fish can't really be more than one generation separate, if that. You can't have "populations" without many generations of separation. In other words: hatchery and wild breeding pairs could be cousins. That's how close the groups are. I can't see how talk of "dilution" or other genetic dispersion can really float.
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Well I believe that Biff and Bwi, already made the point, and it is quite simple!! But there are some that don't believe that a species breeding with a relative can cause any harm. Bottom line, the hatchery was put there so that the fishermen could catch and keep steelhead, while leaving the wild fish, the native fish to the river alone. I don't even know why there is a need for a debate on the topic. I don't know every scientific piece of info on this subject, I am not a biologist. All I did was state what I had been told while at the hatchery. Why do you think that the vedder hatchery takes steelhead that have made it to the hatchery back down to the bottom of the river. So that they may be caught!!. Anyhow, I think that it would be good for Buck, a person that works at the hatchery to comment on the topic, as he is probably the only one qualified to do so. I;m pretty sure that the hatchery has reasons, and evidence for not necessarily wanting hatchery fish to spawn with wild fish.
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Google DR. Ernest Brannon and read his paper "The Salmon & Steelhead Hatchery Fish Controversy" I think that should answer all your questions.
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Hatchery fish are not meant to augment the numbers of returning wild fish. In fact they do quite the opposite, as hatchery numbers increase wild numbers decrease. Why? Simple answer, hatchery fish are competing with wild fish for limited habitat and food. As for hatchery fish being inferior, I think it is reasonable to say that in a hatchery envioronment juveniles are protected from conditions which in the wild would normally kill off all but the most fit. When these returning hatchery fish return and spawn in the wild they are depositing the genes of fish which are not fit for survival out in the wild. In other words, these returning hatchery fish are not meant to be alive in the wild and are passing on their legacy to wild fish.
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This is as noted a personal thought and has nothing to do with facts.
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Google DR. Ernest Brannon and read his paper "The Salmon & Steelhead Hatchery Fish Controversy" I think that should answer all your questions
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yea.....those wild coho we all released this year could very well have been hatchery fish. just not enough funds to clip them all. inch creek does this as well. hatchery fish do spawn with "wild fish" every year and who knows what this means to the genetic pool. 1 male has enough milt to fertilize 3 or 4 or 5 ripe females in a heatchery environment. those offspring are considered "cousins" biologically. if cousins and cousins in 4 years time return to spawn with each other you can see the genetic pool being diluted. thats one conclusion that can happen if the conditions are right so please don't spear me for this....
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The problem with having this discussion is that most people tend to assume the possible negative impacts of hatchery raised fish can be seen after a couple of generations. Most of the predicted problems, which are genetic related, cannot be identified in a decade or less. The evolution of a population is shown in a temporal (time) trend, not in comparisons of the physical attributes between hatchery and wild fish.
Wild fish are not more "superior" than hatchery raised fish. They are simply better because they are products of natural forces. Organisms that are selectively bred by human (yes, we conduct selective breeding on them. I doubt we already have a full understanding of sexual dimorphism of salmonids and can conclude that large males will always breed with large females, etc) are products used to match our demand and best interest.
The juvenile phase between the egg and fry stages is an important phase in the entire salmonid lifecycle. During this time in the rearing streams, weak fish are eliminated due to predation, inability to hunt as well as others, competition for space, etc. These factors are absent in a rearing pond where hatchery raised fish are pellet fed. By minimizing mortality rate and raising the fish to the smolt stage, some weak fish that shouldn't survive during the rearing stage are receiving a free ride. When these fish return to spawn, the "weak" alleles (kinds of genes) might be passed on, which may shift the genetic frequency of a population and weaken it.
For those with a genetic background. If a disease that only occurs in juvenile salmonids is the product of a recessive allele, then offsprings that are homozygous recessive would not survive past the juvenile stage in the wild, but would do perfectly fine with the aid of hatcheries. If there is a higher number of fish that are homozygous recessive return to spawn, then it might result in a higher juvenile mortality in the next generation due to higher number of homozygous recessive offsprings.
As mentioned earlier, the clear effect on the genetic components of a salmonid population cannot be seen in one generation, but can be identified by looking at the trend over ten, twenty, thirty generations. Well, by that time (40, 80, 120 years), it would be pretty hopeless if there is indeed a problem. That's why the issue of hatchery vs wild fish continues to emerge in the scientific community.
So why do we raise more salmon than steelhead in hatcheries? Pretty easy answer really - demand. The sportfishery for salmon is much more heavily participated than for steelhead.
From an angler's point of view, more fish is always better. From a biologist's point of view, that's not necessarily true. Some hatchery proponents tend to lack a good understanding of fishery biology and push for higher production of fish to satisfy their own self-interest. If a population has already reached carrying capacity, then no matter how much more hatchery raised fish you dump into it, the stock will still not revive itself. We should really focus our money and effort more on producing and enhancing spawning and rearing habitats that have been lost due to pollution, urbanization, development and logging.
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So why do we raise more salmon than steelhead in hatcheries? Pretty easy answer really - demand. The sportfishery for salmon is much more heavily participated than for steelhead.
I would beg to differ that the reason we raise more salmon than steelhead is partly due to the fact MOE wants nothing to do with hatchery steelhead and DFO wants to provide retention fisheries province wise, just a difference of opinion.
From an angler's point of view, more fish is always better. From a biologist's point of view, that's not necessarily true. Some hatchery proponents tend to lack a good understanding of fishery biology and push for higher production of fish to satisfy their own self-interest. If a population has already reached carrying capacity, then no matter how much more hatchery raised fish you dump into it, the stock will still not revive itself. We should really focus our money and effort more on producing and enhancing spawning and rearing habitats that have been lost due to pollution, urbanization, development and logging.
Name a river system that is at carring capacity for steelhead anywhere in BC that is also being planted with hatchery steelhead.
In today's world of mass urbanization, hatchery salmonids of all types are going to be needed in the future to provide any sort of sport fishing oppurtunity in the Lower Mainland and on Vancouver Island. Just look at the streams in the south half of BC that have the best returns of wild winter steelhead and you will see that they are the ones with hatcheries on them, the Stamp/Somas, Chehalis, Cowichan and Chillawack/Vedder. No where does it say you need to plant so many fish that you end up with massive returns, just enough to offer fishing oppurtunites where you are not fishing on the last 100-200 fish. Look at the return of steelhead to the Squamish system and how frightening small it is. Mamquam and Ashlu rivers has less than 100 each on most years now, The Upper Squamish has less than 200 and the now wiped out Cheakamus was the darling of the system with recent years having returns less than 200 steelhead some years. Your lucky to have 500 steelhead return in some of the more recent years to the entire system. With more than 20 years of catch and release, no bait, little habitat work done, there are less fish now than when it went catch and release. Lots of people fear hatchery fish because they look at what Washington state has done by planting the same strain of fish in almost all streams and without a doubt this is a poor idea but on the flip side there are a lot rivers in Washington state than are getting more than fishable numbers of steelhead in them right now and as post on a previous thread about what to do in the "off season" well there is no off season down there. Like it is mention earlier, go to www.nwfishermen.org and check out what Dr Ernest L. Brannon has to say.There are 6 parts to read but a lot of it makes commen sense.
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rln, I'm not entirely against hatchery production of steelhead. ;) You're right regarding the difference in DFO and MOE's stand on hatcheries, and that reflects my point on the demand. MOE has a different objective when it comes to managing the resource. Maybe they don't see a demand for steelhead harvest in the sportfishery. Angling participation is obviously less in the steelhead fishery than samlon fishery, those numbers are used to determine the supply.
Coquihalla River, is its steelhead population near carry capacity? (I don't know, so this is not a rhetorical question) The number seems consistently low every season. Does it hold enough spawning ground and primary productivity for more fish?
The problem with the Squamish stocks, from my understanding, is the lack of spawning habitat as most of them spawn in tertiary tributaries that are poor? bkk can probably fill in more on that since he works up there.
Like I stated in the previous post, an increase in hatchery steelhead production would be in the anglers' best interest, so as a fisherman it's a welcoming idea to me. :) However, there are problems based on my past biology schooling. In the end, it all comes down to what we want to see. Do we want to see a "wild" river with smaller populations of fish that are products of natural selection? Or, do we want to see rivers where day trips are possible from Vancouver with large returns of fish that are available to be harvested by anglers?
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I agree with RIN and MOE does not raise Steelhead as the $ are to high for the return on investment. Those are THEIR words.
By the way, it is possible to have your cake and eat it to. As RIN said the systems can have augmented hatchery stocks and all do better.
The Squamish was hatchery augmented for years, the fish were NOT MARKED and it was very succcessful.
MOE shut it down as they did MOST of the rivers on the ECVI and the lower mainland.
The Coq. river is not at its carrying capacity. This river has been totally screwed by the province and they yet have resolved the problems that they created.
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Rod, I never assumed you were for or against hatcheries
1) the Coq is nowhere near capacity. Some years in the good old days the return was plus 1000 fish nowadays usually less than 300.
2) bbk is for some augmentation on the squamish system. He is tired also of fishing a river almost devoid of steelhead.
Now here is a question for you. Do you think MOE biologist's want hatchery programs to work or do you think due to the way they want programs to work, they are doomed to failure right from the start. A few examples to think about are:
1) many years ago now, MOE planted hatchery fish on the Ashlu river ABOVE the falls so there was no available spawning habitat for the returning fish, plus at the time they a)never marked them and b) never did any studies to say one way or the other if the program was successful. But ask now and they will tell you it was not
2) On the Seymour river there is so few steelhead smolts that studies claim they are using only 10% of the available habitat, yet MOE still makes the Seymour Salmonid Society release all the smolts from Swinbourne road downstream and they do not allow them access to ANY of the good habitat available above the canyon.
3) On the Capilano, a couple of years ago they raised somewhere in the neighborhood of 100,000 steelhead smolts at the hatchery then proceeded to put them above the Dam knowing full well that there is an 80% mortality rate on these smolts when they come over the spillway. Makes a lot of sense to me. Why not just raise 80% fewer and plant them below the dam?
I feel the most of these programs are destine for failure before they are even started due to the way a lot of these programs are done. There is a great demand for a harvest fishery on steelhead, but there is NO mandate within MOE to provide a sportfishery of any type let alone a harvest fishery. Another question would be, Why will MOE NOT give steelhead or cutthroat hatchery production to the BC Freshwater Fisheries Society, yet they have no problem with giving these people all the trout work for lake fishing? Just a food for thought.
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Many years ago now, MOE planted hatchery fish on the Ashlu river ABOVE the falls so there was no available spawning habitat for the returning fish, plus at the time they a)never marked them and b) never did any studies to say one way or the other if the program was successful. But ask now and they will tell you it was not.
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I am told that they are still there and some guides are fishing them.
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I just read Ernest Brannon's article. See www.nwfishermen.org/120-05.htm regarding his take on Hatchery Benefits and Risks.
In this article, he concluded that "Contrary to the hatchery critics, artificial propagation should be viewed as a powerful tool in the conservation of wild fish that can be relatively free of long-term genetic risks, when working with local broodstock. Using integrated hatchery/wild fish, population structure of the native fish can be maintained in the presence of reduced habitat, marine related population crashes, and selective fisheries."
In this particular article, he seems to debunk the perceived risks of mixing hatchery and wild fish.
I would note that he does write extensively in other articles about the mixing of non-native hatchery (namely, fish brought in from other system) with native wild fish. In this situation, if the non-native hatchery fish is a stronger or more productive strain, it may displace the the native wild population over time (Brannon also points out that the benefit of this is enhanced diversity). However, this is a different situation from what we have been talking about so far which is allowing native hatchery fish to intermingle with native wild fish.
I say you (or I) can bonk as many hatchery fish that you (or I) can legally catch. But IMO I don't think it is correct to rationalize that the bonking of hatchery fish is necessary for the preservation of the genetics of the wild stock.
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rln, sorry, kept forgetting to reply to your post. I can't really comment much on the projects done by MOE in the past without hearing their reasonings and I am not familiar with them. I think this is a good reason to push further for an advisory committee with the province like what the SFAC and SFAB have been doing with DFO. We've had a MOE staff attending the last couple meetings at our SFAC, very useful.
Regarding Coquihalla River, if historical return was at 1000+ spawners, can the current state of the river hold that many fish? Has its carry capacity changed over the years due to habitat alteration etc? I'm asking, should habitat enhancement be done first prior to augmentation so there is more spawning habitat for more spawning fish?
"Another question would be, Why will MOE NOT give steelhead or cutthroat hatchery production to the BC Freshwater Fisheries Society, yet they have no problem with giving these people all the trout work for lake fishing? Just a food for thought."
Well that's easy, MOE is trying to take out sportfishing from the equation in river management? ;)
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MOE should be changed from the Ministry of Environment to the Ministry of Extinction when it comes to steelhead management at the present time.
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Last year I met a flyfishing steelheader from White Rock. He told me that he was retired, and he spent lots of time fishing. He said in terms of steelhead population of steelhead rivers, ours are just miniscule compared to the American rivers. He was tossing out a series of names of American rivers from the Russian in northern California to the Clearwater, Williamette, Deschute & Umqua & Rogue of Oregon, to Cowlitz & Klamath of WA, & those in Olympic Peninsula Wa. He said you would not believe the phenomenal steelhead fishing in some of those rivers, 20-30 hookups per day are common, and fish runs are in 20K to 40K steelheads per river. Some rivers, particularly those in Olympic Peninsula, produce huge steelies. So he said in his retirement, he only fished the U.S. rivers now.
I have not fished the U.S. waters yet, but if his stories are true, what the heck is happening to our great Canadian fishing? Is MOE the culpit in the decline of our fish stock? I mean, if our Vedder is considered among the best steelhead river here, and yet most fishers are skunked in their trips (even top rods), how do we come to this, that even our best river is so far behind in productivity?
Has any one fished the U.S. steelhead rivers to echo this gentleman's comment?
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I have fished the Sol-Duc, Hoe and some other rivers from washington. I would not put that much faith in what the retirey was saying. While I was fishing there over a couple of years, I went with many of the areas top guides. Our best day was hooking three steel. While chatting with one of the guides in particular, he was mentioning that even 10-15 years ago, the fishing was great, they would have no problem getting their clients into multipule fish days. But, year after year it was getting slower and slower. Till, even the springs were on a major decline. AS for the steel, of the time that I spent down there, we only ever saw maybe 10 steelies hooked. But on a plus side there was a beauty chrome 23lb Buck that was landed. We followed to fight about 2.5 km down river, then got out of the boat and helped the poor guy land his beast. It was an amazing Steel.
But overall, I was left with the impression that their fishery was going downhill very fast. The only ones that were doing good down there for steel was the ones with the nets!! If you know what I mean. All the guides I talked to had the same feeling, and you could cut the tension with a knife whenever the topic came up!! Thus I have not been back for over 2 years. I was informed that it would more than likely be a waste of money. ;) :(
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Anyone who sees these pics might think different than Big Steel.
http://www.lettypotter.com/ (http://www.lettypotter.com/)
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OK SO, I didn't have much luck with the guides I was with!!! I didn't say that everyone else would have the same experiece as I did!! If you have the right guide, maybe anything is possible. I was just relating what I saw and what I was told!! ;) That was just MY view on the topic!!
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Did you met this gentleman on the river?
By the way Big_steel you need your beauty sleep aren't you going fishing in the morning?
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Thinking about it, but it seems as though I have noone to go with, so I'm not sure!! :P ;)
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BwiBwi, no, I didn't meet him in the Vedder. I posted my new Patagonia boots for sales (a bit too tight for me) on Fishbc, and he came from White Rock to my home to buy it. Then he proceeded to reveal to me where he was fishing, and how great steelheading was down south. I don't think he was boasting or lying. He was a nice, soft speaking gentleman. He told me about the fantastic fishing down south only because I asked him where he would mainly use the Patagonia Beefy boots.
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No actually I wasn't calling him lying. We're visiting my cousin down south, Redmond next week for 3 days, and will be doing some fishing. I was hoping if you meet him again can ask him for fly pattern suggestion.