Fish and Wildlife to continues trapping fish

In 2008, Fish and Wildlife implemented new policies and strategies for trapping salmon hatchery fish in the lower Columbia River region. Fish and Wildlife's Regional Fish Manager Pat Frazier explained it is because the old methods of rearing fish in pens have had an adverse affect on the growth of wild salmon and steelhead populations in the lower Columbia River.

The study outlined by WDFW in 2008 is to help recover endangered and threatened wild salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River. Frazier said, "These modifications are part of a broader effort to re-tool hatchery programs in the Columbia River basin."

Fish and Wildlife said its goal is to change hatchery operations in ways that support naturally spawning salmon populations and to provide sustainable fisheries for communities along the lower Columbia River. To that end WDFW has closed both the Elochoman and Beaver Creek salmon rearing hatchery facilities.

Looking at the bigger picture, Frazier said WDFW wants to create a new, natural-return wild fish refuge that would be one of several established in the lower Columbia region. The fish refuges would support and aid the growth of the wild Chinook and Steelhead populations that spawn in the lower Columbia tributaries.

"These refuges are intended to benefit wild salmon and steelhead populations by minimizing the number of competing hatchery-produced fish on the spawning grounds, while still maintaining sustainable fishing opportunities," said Frazier.

"œSpecifically, the changes reduce Coho releases from hatcheries on the lower Columbia River," said WDFW fish biologist Jeremy Wilson and establish three wild steelhead refuges in the river.

Wilson said that so far for 2009 WDFW has trapped and removed about 2400 hatchery-reared Chinook from the Elochoman. "We'™ve also trapped 172 Chinook and we've removed 132 brights that were from the Young'™s Bay net pen," said Wilson. Washington Fish and Wildlife is trying to keep the Young'™s Bay fish out of the Grays because the fish are from a totally different stock.

The new trapping polices were developed after the steelhead and chinook salmon were listed under the Endangered Species Act. Frazier said the research has led fish biologists to understand that hatchery fish, though a genetically weaker species of fish, were taking over the spawning grounds of wild salmon through their sheer numbers.

Representatives from WDFW, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife, Columbia River tribes, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and NOAA Fisheries all met to develop a conservation-based, system-wide approach to promoting wild salmon production.

"This re-alignment of hatchery operations and production is part of a bigger effort to restore naturally spawning salmon and steelhead populations in the Columbia River," Frazier said. "œBut other actions, such as restoring habitat, modifying harvest and improving fish passage at dams, also need to take place if we are going to succeed."

The hatchery modifications are consistent with the Lower Columbia River Salmon Recovery Plan and recommendations from the Hatchery Scientific Review Group (HSRG). The HSGR is an independent panel of scientists established by Congress to look at salmon hatchery operations and their impacts on wild salmon in Washington State.

The Scientific Review Group's review of what to do about the dwindling wild salmon stocks points out that the hatchery fish are actually responsible for the reduced productivity of wild salmon stocks. The hatchery fish are taking over breeding areas where wild salmon now spawn. There is also the question of habitat.

Another reason given by WDFW to trap-out competing hatchery salmon is that wild salmon habitat along the lower Columbia has been affected by tributary dams and sedimentation build up from logging and residential development.

The HSRG said that until recently the majority of salmon production in the lower Columbia had been of hatchery origin and the domestication and/or reduction in the fitness of wild fish is due primarily to inter-breeding with hatchery fish.

In addition the HSRG research puts hatchery salmon in direct competition with wild salmon. The two species compete for food and habitat but because more hatchery fish are produced than wild, the pen-reared fish overpower wild stocks. In addition hatchery stocks, though more numerous, are still the genetically weaker of the two breeds and often introduce disease into the wild salmon populations.

On the up-side, to some degree, researchers have discovered that hatchery fish do assist wild salmon recovery efforts to some extent by providing the female fish needed to augment a salmon run on creeks that have reached critically low levels of wild salmon breeding. "When we trap the fish," said Wilson,"we will often keep some of the hatchery fish and move them to spawning grounds on creeks with low fish returns."

Since 1954 the Elochoman hatchery has produced winter and summer steelhead, fall chinook, and coho for harvest by sport and commercial fishers. The WDFW say their new measure to trap hatchery salmon will help wild species compete with the hatchery fish that tend to migrate alongside wild salmon, along the same routes, and at the same times.

The HSRG said their biological evidence requires that new modified-hatchery standards promote local wild salmon growth through adaptation. Many current hatchery programs have operated in a manner that disrupts the natural selection of salmon. Salmon evolve according to their habitats along the Columbia and that adaptation tends to further strengthen wild salmon stocks.

Wilson said the salmon trapping and hatchery enhancement programs on the lower Columbia will continue for about another 10 years. The scientific forecast for the region predicts that the next decade will see significant increases in the numbers of wild salmon returning to the lower Columbia. The prediction also mentions that both commercial and sports fishing interests will experience improved fishing.