Hi,

The part that got my attention was:
"A federal judge in Eugene ruled three years ago that the Fisheries
Service had to count hatchery fish when it evaluated the strength of
salmon stocks. That caused Oregon Coastal Coho salmon to be removed
from the threatened species list."

The Atlantic Salmon here in Nova Scotia is so low that almost every
river here is "stock enhanced" - meaning that a portion of the
"naturally" returning salmon are intercepted and stripped of eggs and
milt, and then the hatchery plants the eggs or very young of these
"wild" fish and places them into the river. This has worked very well,
and the Margaree bears the proof of this. The North River is the only
other river in the Province that meets production escapement numbers
sufficient to ensure the speices survives, and it does it without the
"enhancement", but the river is much more remote than the Margaree.

The Atlantic Salmon is an endangered fish, if they ever forced the
feds up here to count the released hatchery fish as part of the
bio-mass, then it's game over for these fish, and would be just
another reason the feds could deny funding...


A sad story, indeed.

Bill
http://www.tightlines.ca