TR: Monster Steelhead

"Yuji Sakuma" wrote:
Hello JR,

I am not sure that I understand the reasons for your opposition to
trying to
restore disappearing natural runs with hatchery fish. These days, I
understand that hatchery stock, in order to maintain the purity of the
gene
pool for a given river, is produced using eggs and milt from wild fish
returning to that river . From what I hear, hatchery fish do have a
higher
early mortality than stream bred fish because despite having the same
genes,
they will be less well adapted to wild conditions initially. However,
if
they do manage to survive say, a year, it seems to me that they should
be
the same in every way as stream-bred fish of the same age. Am I
missing
something here? Sure, I too would like to see steelhead runs restored
by
returning the environment to what it was a couple of centuries ago but
let's
face it, that's not going to happen.


Yuji,

JR is right on the money here, but you are too. The problem os that
only some of the hatcheries actually take wild fish for their brood
stock. Most of the rivers have two distinct runs of fish, the early
run is the hatchery fish, they are smaller, and the descendants of
hatchery fish first introduced from other rivers many years ago. The
later run natives are the vestige if the original stock and need to be
protected.

In a few instances hatcheries have converted to supporting the native
fishery, and in most of those cases they don't mark the smolts before
releasing them so we see them as natives when they return.

Thanks for asking some good questions,

Chas
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On 2004-02-07 11:04:31 -0700, Chas Wade
said:

"Yuji Sakuma" wrote:
Hello JR,

I am not sure that I understand the reasons for your opposition to
trying to
restore disappearing natural runs with hatchery fish. These days, I
understand that hatchery stock, in order to maintain the purity of the
gene
pool for a given river, is produced using eggs and milt from wild fish
returning to that river . From what I hear, hatchery fish do have a
higher
early mortality than stream bred fish because despite having the same
genes,
they will be less well adapted to wild conditions initially. However,
if
they do manage to survive say, a year, it seems to me that they should
be
the same in every way as stream-bred fish of the same age. Am I
missing
something here? Sure, I too would like to see steelhead runs restored
by
returning the environment to what it was a couple of centuries ago but
let's
face it, that's not going to happen.


Yuji,

JR is right on the money here, but you are too. The problem os that only
some of the hatcheries actually take wild fish for their brood stock. Most
of the rivers have two distinct runs of fish, the early run is the hatchery
fish, they are smaller, and the descendants of hatchery fish first
introduced from other rivers many years ago. The later run natives are the
vestige if the original stock and need to be protected.

I don't think the problem is that hatchery steelhead (bred from wild stock)
have inferior genetics at conception. They have the same genetics as wild
fish. The problem is that they're raised "in bulk," protected from the
vissicitudes of nature, such as predators, weather, and disease, until
they're smolts., and then they're released. They haven't gone through the
culling that they're wild cousins endure, so they have inferior genetics
when they're released.

IMO, of course. I'm just an armchair fisheries biologist. :-)

-----------------------------------------------------
Cut "to the chase" for my email address.

rw wrote:

I don't think the problem is that hatchery steelhead (bred from wild
stock) have inferior genetics at conception. They have the same genetics
as wild fish.


They do have different genetics from wild fish because we're choosing
which fish will reproduce instead of nature. It's as close as we can get
to reproducing what would have ocurred naturally, but the genetics
aren't the same.

Willi

Willi wrote:


rw wrote:

I don't think the problem is that hatchery steelhead (bred from wild
stock) have inferior genetics at conception. They have the same
genetics
as wild fish.


They do have different genetics from wild fish because we're choosing
which fish will reproduce instead of nature. It's as close as we can
get
to reproducing what would have ocurred naturally, but the genetics
aren't the same.

This is certainly a grey area Willi, but I know of one recent study
that supports what you're talking about. It seems that in the wild a
large majority (90% I think) of the fertilized chinook eggs were
fertilized by jacks. I've seen video of the jacks sneaking in and
going the deed right under the big bucks. In a hatchery they take a
big buck and use his milt to fertilize the eggs from several hens in a
bucket.

Monday I watched the guys at the Cascade River steelhead hatchery
stripping the eggs from a dozen 3 to 5 pound steelhead into a bucket,
and then collecting the milt from a few bucks in a zip lock bag. The
hatchery fish on this river are all small and return early. I don't
know, but I think they're Skamania river fish. The Skamania is about
300 miles away and dumps into the Columbia. Eggs from that hatchery
represent most of the steelhead in the midwest, and also most of the
hatchery fish in the northwest.

Chas
remove fly fish to reply
http://home.comcast.net/~chas.wade/w...ome.html-.html
San Juan Pictures at:
http://home.comcast.net/~chasepike/wsb/index.html

a variety of references are available at
http://www.nativefishsociety.org/search.htm
a search for hatchery, hatcheries, genetics etc. will provide a number of
pointers
to the current science. Also,
http://www.nativefishsociety.org/docs/Biblio/bib.htm

--
Jeff

Kamchatka
http://home.teleport.com/~salmo/K2000/
NFS
http://NativeFishSociety.org


"Willi" wrote in message
...


rw wrote:

I don't think the problem is that hatchery steelhead (bred from wild
stock) have inferior genetics at conception. They have the same genetics
as wild fish.


They do have different genetics from wild fish because we're choosing
which fish will reproduce instead of nature. It's as close as we can get
to reproducing what would have ocurred naturally, but the genetics
aren't the same.

Willi

In article ,
rw wrote:

JR is right on the money here, but you are too. The problem os that only
some of the hatcheries actually take wild fish for their brood stock. Most
of the rivers have two distinct runs of fish, the early run is the hatchery
fish, they are smaller, and the descendants of hatchery fish first
introduced from other rivers many years ago. The later run natives are the
vestige if the original stock and need to be protected.

I don't think the problem is that hatchery steelhead (bred from wild stock)
have inferior genetics at conception. They have the same genetics as wild
fish. The problem is that they're raised "in bulk," protected from the
vissicitudes of nature, such as predators, weather, and disease, until
they're smolts., and then they're released. They haven't gone through the
culling that they're wild cousins endure, so they have inferior genetics
when they're released.

IMO, of course. I'm just an armchair fisheries biologist. :-)

Well why dont they just release the steelhead into the river at a
earlier time? I guess it would be preety hard to implant the eggs into
redds, but they could release the salmon fry. Of course they would have
to release alot more (something like 100 times more salmon fry than 1
year old's?)

--
"He that would exchange liberty for temporary safety
deserves neither liberty nor safety. Ben Franklin
"Those who are ready to sacrifice freedom for security
ultimately will lose both" - Abraham Lincoln

Steve_sullivan wrote:

Well why dont they just release the steelhead into the river at a
earlier time? I guess it would be preety hard to implant the eggs
into
redds, but they could release the salmon fry. Of course they would
have
to release alot more (something like 100 times more salmon fry than 1
year old's?)

We had a discussion about this with some folks from Washington Trout.
They got all excited about the selection that goes on getting the eggs
to stay in the redd, and all that stuff. I think you'd find it would
take closer to 1000 times as many eggs to get the fish up to 10 inches
safely, and the 10 inch size is what they release. Any process of
inserting the eggs in the redds would be horibly expensive to implement.

Chas
remove fly fish to reply
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"rw" wrote in message
. ..

I don't think the problem is that hatchery steelhead (bred from wild
stock)
have inferior genetics at conception. *They have the same genetics as wild
fish.* The problem is that they're raised "in bulk," protected from the
vissicitudes of nature, such as predators, weather, and disease, until
they're smolts., and then they're released. They haven't gone through the
culling that they're wild cousins endure, so *they have inferior genetics
when they're released.*

IMO, of course. I'm just an armchair fisheries biologist. :-)

Well now, that's as fine a muddle headed example of neo-Lamarckian gibberish
as we've seen here all day.

Wolfgang
*emphasis added*