Bill wrote:

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."
....snip.......
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.......

Precisely. Development, mining, and logging interests that are trying
to confuse the issue. There is great pressure from these lobbies to
blur the distinction between hatchery fish and wild fish. In most
places
in the PNW, hatchery steelhead and salmon are physically marked somehow,
usually by fin-clipping. Once you include hatchery fish in counts used
to determine stock strengths, you then can go on to maintain that wild
and hatchery fish are essentially the same (this argument is already
being made by the development interests), and later to stop altogether
distinguishing wild fish from hatchery fish in any way for management
purposes (again, currently being urged, and in the case of some tribal
hatchery operations, already being done).

Relying on hatcheries alone has failed in Atlantic salmon restoration.
Relying on hatchery output *alone* (or even primarily) to save wild
steelhead and Pacific salmon in the PNW will also fail.

Hatchery fish, produced only from truly wild brood stock and in numbers
*as small a possible* to take angling pressure off wild fish, can
perhaps play a valuable but *minor* stop-gap role, but only as a
supplement to the much more important efforts to maintain and restore
viable habitat (and eventually, I believe, to the breaching of a large
number of dams). These critical habitat restoration efforts are what
stick in the craw of the pro-development interests, which is why they
are actively trying to muddy the waters.

Some more background on the panel's findings, and why they were ignored
by the National Marine Fisheries Service, for those who are interested:

Eureka Alert: "Government appointed panel of scientists responds to
NMFS 'Censorship' by publishing in Science""
http://tinyurl.com/2oykz

Seattle Times: "Salmon panel goes public in dispute over hatchery fish"
http://tinyurl.com/35l22

San Francisco Chronicle: "Salmon jeopardized by method used in run
count"
http://tinyurl.com/225f9

JR