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IUAEIOHJ THERES A DRAGON!

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Total Members Voted: 31

[MrWiseDood]

Tell me if this doesn't make any sense to you.
Salmon hatcheries yes?, everybody knows about them.
All this is just my opinion, don't take any offence.
Most information I use come directly from the DFO of Canada/BC. Beautiful British Colomubia huh?
Hatcheries of BC, I dont get it. Heres the deal.
Every single year, you take fish and hatch millions of them, even though in nature, out of 2500 Salmon Eggs/ Alevin, The number of deaths are 2125. That means the survival rate of salmon eggs is only fifteen percent. However, the survival rate of Salmon Eggs and Alevin in hatcheries is a huge amount of 90%. Thats a huge difference, the survival chance from the wild to the hatchery is 75%. Seventy five percent. Thats huge.   
Now, lets look at it from mother nature. "oh my god, all these fish are eating up my buggies and fishies, how can I maintain a balanced ecosystem? Seems sort of hard for me, its not easy to support an extra 75% of salmon"
There, if we. Canadians, are stressing out natures ability to make more food for salmon. Not only that, commericial harvesters are overharvesting fish like smolts, herring, etc. Those fish are salmons main source of diet. Due to overeating, over harvesting, and pollution. If we destory the bottom of the food chain, how do the top predators survive?
Also, this problem about sea lice? It wouldn't be as big of a problem if we had those small fish. They eat insects. Any small life forms, etc. So technically, we can stop blaming and pointing fingers. Most of the damage done of nature is because of us. Thats it.
Its just all us.   
think it through before posting hate comments.
Thank you very much

[theonepencil]

Wow, I've never thought of it this way! maybe you're right!
YAY first post!

[MrWiseDood]

you.
are beautiful son.
yes you are.

[alwaysfishn]

Excellent post  Mr.Dood!

I can see clearly now......

[Fish or cut bait.]

Of course this makes sense but the purpose of hatcheries is to offset the damage we've done.
whether it be through building dams, overfishing, releasing pollutants into the environment (the list goes on).
At the turn of the century there were hundreds of creeks and streams in and around Vancouver (and elsewhere; I've got some pictures of Alma near UBC some where if I find them I'll scan and post and NO I wasn't alive when they were taken)) that supported a large number of salmon, steelhead, and...,that became: first ditches and then culverts.
Before the Columbia river dam system was built you could find salmon in Salmo (short for SALMON) 1/2 hour drive from Nelson or Castelgar and most of the creeks and streams that feed into it.
So after wiping out hundreds of  runs that might only have a 15% survival rate and replacing them (after some time) with a hatchery system that has a 75% (for released smolts) survival rate in my opinion is not yet good enough.
Hypothetically:
(WILD) 15% of 1,000,000 = 150,000 (fish lost because of us to dams, and other developments) HAD  a chance at returning.
(HATCHERY) 75% of 100,000 = 75,000 that HAVE a chance of returning.

Note: the numbers I threw out were for explanation purposes only.

I could go on but life calls.......

Hatcheries are both replacement and enhancement and they'll never be good enough for those that care; whether it's for the industries that create jobs, the sportfisher that loves the sport or the person who's only interest is to fill the freezer.

Remember: the more anglers out there the more pressure that is added,  fish responsibly, follow the rules and respect this valuable resource.

[lapetitebuse]

Nature created us, we destroy nature = nature destroy itself?
But it's not the nature of the nature to destroy itself, the only explanation is we are not natural ant more

[MrWiseDood]

Of course this makes sense but the purpose of hatcheries is to offset the damage we've done.
whether it be through building dams, overfishing, releasing pollutants into the environment (the list goes on).
At the turn of the century there were hundreds of creeks and streams in and around Vancouver (and elsewhere; I've got some pictures of Alma near UBC some where if I find them I'll scan and post and NO I wasn't alive when they were taken)) that supported a large number of salmon, steelhead, and...,that became: first ditches and then culverts.
Before the Columbia river dam system was built you could find salmon in Salmo (short for SALMON) 1/2 hour drive from Nelson or Castelgar and most of the creeks and streams that feed into it.
So after wiping out hundreds of  runs that might only have a 15% survival rate and replacing them (after some time) with a hatchery system that has a 75% (for released smolts) survival rate in my opinion is not yet good enough.
Hypothetically:
(WILD) 15% of 1,000,000 = 150,000 (fish lost because of us to dams, and other developments) HAD  a chance at returning.
(HATCHERY) 75% of 100,000 = 75,000 that HAVE a chance of returning.

Note: the numbers I threw out were for explanation purposes only.

I could go on but life calls.......

Hatcheries are both replacement and enhancement and they'll never be good enough for those that care; whether it's for the industries that create jobs, the sportfisher that loves the sport or the person who's only interest is to fill the freezer.

Remember: the more anglers out there the more pressure that is added,  fish responsibly, follow the rules and respect this valuable resource.

Okay I soupose that makes sense,
but i dont think you understand me. What your saying is, we have hatcheries to make up for what we destory, yet that still goes against what I'm saying, just because we have more fish, it doesnt mean that they will all survive and come back.
In the wild, if only one fish survivles, let only one fish survive. I guess thats too hard to understand for some people. Here this might make a big more sense.
Your feeding a huge fire with five logs.
You could feed the fire slowly and make it last a long time. Maybe longer then you need.
Yet, you decide to get fifteen logs and chuck them all into the fire at once. Does the fire burn hotter? maybe for a bit, but eventually, the fire will burn out even faster because its much hotter. Maybe the fire would just perish because the tiny fire from the beginning cannot support that many logs.
You can also think of it like this.
You have a pet fish, everyday you feed it five pellets of fish food.
One day you decide to feed it fifteen pellets.
What happens? your fish dies. Some things were ment to just "let it be"
Through my own opinion, I don't think hatcheries are the right thing. If this so and so river isn't looking healthy and is not producing as well, why not just shut it down for a couple of years. Let nature take place. That way, Everything could be balanced out. Instead, smart people decide that, if we have a billion fish, yay! They're all going to survive and we'll all live happily ever after!
Dont worry! Somehow, herrings and sardines will fall out of the sky to feed all of the hungry fish, why? because god is nice. He is there to fix all of our mistakes.

[Rodney]

Those horrible horrible commercial smolt harvesters... Gotta hate them.

Good to think critically, but you need more research and all the correct information to do so. BC's salmon hatchery program does not mindlessly pump "millions of salmon" into rivers just to satisfy the world's hungry demand.

[jon5hill]

BC's salmon hatchery program does not mindlessly pump "millions of salmon" into rivers just to satisfy the world's hungry demand.

Let's be honest here - based on pretty bad estimates of escapement and recruitment, combined with poor annual temperature forecasting due to the combined effects of the Pacific Decadal Oscillation and El Nino oscillation - compounded by unreliable predictions of coastal upwelling (which serve as a surrogate for primary productivity and zooplankton availability), and the numerous confounding environmental/ecological variables absent from the most complex models available - the population estimates are extremely unreliable. Dr. John Reynolds (SFU) mentioned his confusion regarding why we even try to predict escapement numbers, given that the best models can only account for about 35% of the actual escapement numbers. These escapement estimates partly drive hatchery supplementation, even with the knowledge that we don't really know how many fish there are out there, how many of them will return, how many may be available for harvest, what the marine survival rate is, the long term ecological implications of mono-culturing our salmon stock, the capacity of hatchery fish to survive and return to their released streams, the carrying capacity of the estuarine/littoral habitat for juveniles, and so on.. Just about the only thing we do know is that we like to catch salmon and we like to eat salmon. Under all these uncertainties, we still drop millions of fish into watersheds all across BC. If we're not mindlessly pumping millions of salmon into the rivers just to satisfy our hungry demand, then why are we doing it?

[MrWiseDood]

to restore nature? 8-(

[Rodney]

to restore nature? 8-(

To give ourselves that fuzzy warm feeling.

then why are we doing it?

Jon, there's no denial that certain stocks are supplemented by hatchery production to sustain fishery without jeopardizing it. The problem in the original post that I was attempting to point out is that the view is too generalizing and paints an incorrect picture of how our salmon resource is managed in British Columbia. Each stock has its own characteristics, has its own problems, which require solutions that may differ to what are used on other stocks. Unpredictability of adult salmon return is more specifically referred to Fraser River sockeye salmon in recent years, while most of our fall stocks are more easily forecasted without too many errors. There'll always be errors. Preseason forecast given out in the media is usually one number, when in fact there are different values at different probability levels when preseason forecast is determined. Fraser River sockeye salmon have little to no hatchery supplementation, so there isn't much relevance between it and return forecast. Lots of other examples, too many and complex to list so I'd rather not spend too much time on the net to persuade those such as the OP (good for him though, still young, cares and hopefully will get involved as he finds out more) who already seems to be convinced that we are dumping hatchery fish into the drink without any research on its possible impacts.

[adriaticum]

Way out to lunch!

[fish bonk]

  a yup

[skaha]

-- each system has to be looked at and hatchery supplement is just one tool.
-- kinda salmon related... kokanee in Okanagan lk.. the fishery has been closed for several years.. multiple strategies employed
-- but people dig in their heals with blind ideology. early decision in the process was no hatchery supplement allowed.
-- penticton creek used to be a natural spawning ground within the city.. flood control..(hopefully this type would not be approved today)..the river bed was cemented into a channel.
-- we put in artificial spawn beds and fish ladders but surprise still not enough fish returning to utilize more than two of the five beds. we have and prior to the fishery closure operated a small hatchery on the creek...taking a few returning fish.. not  millions or every fish that returned. But Alas no operation of this facility for more than 10 yrs that the system has been closed to fishing.
-- doesn't make sense to me...especially since there is a plan to reintroduce sockeye to okanagan and skaha lks. apparently sockeye are so different from kokanee that a hatchery supplement of sockeye will work but would be devastating if a similar approach was used  to enhance the kokanee fishery .
--priority one should be the rehab of the creek to as natural a state as possible and my preference would be no hatchery but I think it needs a short term boost.

[fishfulthinkin]

IUAEIOHJ THERES A DRAGON!