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Salmon is sacred to some tribes. It’s a vital business to commercial fisherman. It’s a wildlife management issue for government agencies, a fish in need of protection to environmentalists, and an infinitely complex species to scientists. All these groups have an interest in seeing a healthy population of salmon but what's the best way to accomplish that goal?
Most salmon eaten today comes from hatcheries.
Is hatchery fishing a good thing or not? Proponents, including several native tribes, say hatcheries help strengthen the salmon population. But some scientists and environmentalists argue that hatcheries breed a kind of "super salmon" that behaves differently from wild salmon and actually threatens the wild fish.
Early efforts to improve salmon run by changing logging practices underscored some of the complexities of tampering with nature. How will hatcheries be viewed in 20 years time?
Are you a commercial fisherman? Do you fish for fun? Do you specifically ask for wild salmon in restaurants and stores? Can you taste the difference between wild and hatchery fish?
GUESTS:
- John Platt: Lawyer and assistant director of the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission
- Rich Lincoln: Director of State of the Salmon
- Greg Higgins: Chef and owner of Higgins Restaurant and Bar
- Bruce McIntosh: Assistant director of the fish division of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife
Tagged as: fishing · hatcheries · salmon
Photo credit: Fotoroto / Creative Commons
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Hi Dale,
Here's how we introduced Chris Dudley and Allen Alley (sorry about the all caps, the script is written that way):
A LOT OF PEOPLE WANT THE REPUBLICAN NOMINATION FOR GOVERNOR OF OREGON.
ONE IS A FORMER PRO BASKETBALL PLAYER WHO SPENT SEVERAL YEARS WITH THE BLAZERS. CHRIS DUDLEY IS A MULTIMILLIONAIRE WHO NOW WORKS AS AN INVESTMENT ADVISOR. HE HAS NO POLITICAL EXPERIENCE BUT HE RUNS A CHARITABLE FOUNDATION.
ALLEN ALLEY HAS SERVED AS AN ADVISOR FOR OREGON’S CURRENT DEMOCRATIC GOVERNOR. HE ALSO EARNED MILLIONS MAKING VIDEO CHIPS FOR PROJECTORS AND FLAT SCREEN TVS. ALLEY SPENT LAST SUMMER ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL - WALKING 400 MILES ACROSS OREGON.
Looking back at the video, it seems like Chris Dudley shook his head when I said he was a multimillionaire. Is that the part that disappointed you?
You can watch the video here.
Emily
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Referring to your program, "Fishing for Answers, I recommend the following from the Yakima Herald, the Columbia Basin Bulletin, and Trails.com as food for thinking out loud.
http://www.yakima-herald.com/stories/2010/2/10/02-11-10-coho-returns
http://www.cbbulletin.com/371465.aspx
http://www.trails.com/tcatalog_trail.aspx?trailid=FGW017-083
I also suggest the following for a good representation of the Yakama Nation's approach to use of hatcheries for salmon recovery.
http://www.fws.gov/pacific/fisheries/hatcheryreview/Reports/leavenworth/MC--016YakamaNationMidColumbiaperspective4_15_06.pdf
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Tribal Restoration Success Stories
Snake River Fall Chinook
Wild fall Chinook reached a low of 78 in 1990 at Lower Granite Dam.
NMFS attempted to stop tribal fishing.
Tribes settled with Federal Government.
Settlement resulted in increased supplementation.
Wild fall Chinook return was 2,777 in 2008 at Lower Granite Dam.
Snake River Coho
1984 count at Lower Granite was 0.
Count was 0 from 1987 to 1996.
NMFS declared population extinct.
Nez Perce began reintroduction program with first returns (84) in 1997.
2008 count at Lower Granite was 4,629.
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I know there are some who espouse the sentiment "Friends don't let friends eat hatchery salmon," but given the choice between eating hatchery salmon, NOT eating salmon at all, or paying a very high retail price for salmon, I will go with the hatchery salmon. If this is our best solution at present for preserving the species, then I'm all for it.
(The scenario in Star Trek IV with the whales was awe-inspiring, especially Spock's comment that "only human arrogance would assume the message was meant for them." We are pretty arrogant to think we're the only intelligent life on Earth, let alone in the Universe. WHAT IF an 'alien probe' comes to Earth looking for its 'children' only to find that salmon are extinct?)
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Fishing for Answers, I have a question :
Steelhead studies are frequently cited to show that hatchery fish are inferior to wild fish. Yet state programs admittedly rear hatchery steelhead to be different. For example, “In Washington State, the approach to management of wild and hatchery steelhead trout Oncorhynchus mykiss has been to separate the timing of return and spawning by the two groups through selective breeding for early timing in hatchery fish.” – Mackey, Mclean, and Quinn, 2001, North American Journal of Fisheries Management. Is it scientifically honest to purposely rear hatchery fish to be different from wild fish, then publish and continually cite studies that find and blame differences between hatchery and wild fish on the hatchery environment rather than on the managers who designed the hatchery program(s)?
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I didn't hear any steelhead studies being referenced in this program. Of course steelhead are not salmon and shouldn't be used to compare.
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This year's spring chinook run is about 15% wild fish. So not all runs are 95% hatchery.
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85% hatchery fish is still far too high!
And for those who don't kow (for the sake of disclosure), Stuart Ellis works for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fisheries Commission. The same organization that John Platt works for.
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While some may think that having only 15% of this year's upriver spring chinook run as wild fish may not be enough, you also have to consider the overall size of the run. We could easily be looking at a Spring Chinook run of around 340,000 this year. In that case we may have over 50,000 wild spring chinook in the run. This would make it somewhere around the 4th highest return of wild fish in the past 40 years. That would not be too bad in my opinion.
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'Sacred?' It is time we started treating the concerns of 'tribes' like that of religions. Which means they shouldn't need special treatment, and should be kept out of politics. And, if their concerns on a topic are about what is 'sacred,' then we leave them out of the discussion. Just because the spiritual concerns of tribes appear to come in different packaging, it doesn't mean they aren't the equivalent of any other religious view.
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Sorry scottmil but the tribes are co-managers and have a well established, legally backed, treaty right. They've had the best success restoring runs.
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No need to be sorry. How wonderful! But, it doesn't mean it is correct---that we allow religious concerns to into how we do business. I suppose it sounds like it is acceptable to many of us, that tribes are willing to help save the sacred salmon, that they are on our side this time. Not so great when the religious get involved in other arenas though. What a pathetic double standard.
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Scottmil,
The reason the tribes are co-managers has nothing to do with religion or the view by some that salmon are "sacred". It is due wholly and solely to their treaty rights as sovereign nations. I could be wrong but if it weren't for the tribes the salmon would have been wiped out decades ago by the choices made by the US (e.g. dams, which cause a barrier to both upstream and downstream salmon travel, destruction of riparian habitat by cattle grazing and logging without mitigation until fairly recently.)
Just to be clear. I am not a native American, but I am a native Oregonian.
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The concern about hatchery fish preying on wild fish is over rated. There have been a very small number of hatchery programs where there has been a concern raised about this and changes to the hatchery programs were made to correct the problem. (you can change the size of released fish, the timing of the release or the location of release). I worked on a research project in NE Oregon years ago to address concerns that hatchery steelhead were eating wild spring chinook. We caught and killed well over a thousand juvenile hatchery steelhead and sampled there stomachs and we never found any evidence they were eating any salmonids at all.
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Are the hatchery salmon genetically different than the wild salmon? I always thought they were hatched from eggs milked from wild salmon, but if they are genetically bred to be more adapted to a hatchery environment, then I would worry more
As long as they are genetically the same, then the differences are environment and I'm not particularly worried. A generation or two of no hatcheries will filter back to wild adapted fish.
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In many cases such as wild Upper Columbia Spring Chinook, they are genetically indistinguishable from Carson hatchery fish.
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Mr. Ellis,
Could it be that the Upper Columbia River spring Chinook are indistinguishable from the Carson hatchery salmon becasue the Carson hatchery salmon have strayed all over the place? Some hatchery stocks, such as Carson and Rapid River Chinook and Wallowa steelhead have been known to stray a lot! That is why the Carson and Rapid River stocks are not used as much as they used to be and the Wallowa river stock is being managed (they are spawnign the early run fish) to try to stop the straying.
Straying (returning to spawn in places other than where they were released) is another huge problem with some stocks of hatchery fish. They can end up polluting the genes of native populations.
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The Carson NFH spring chinook stock was used to successfully restore the Umatilla population and has been used successfully in a number of other recovery efforts. I believe Methow is one of the other efforts. As I recall, the Carson stock was collected from the spring chinook run at Bonneville during the 50's so it expresses traits from all of the upriver spring chinook. BTW, what's so wrong with straying. It is a natural trait that permits salmon to recolonize newly-opened habitat. It's the other side of the coin from homing. But I'm only a lawyer who is repeating what I've heard. Maybe a hatchery tech or fish scientist can comment with first hand information.
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Carson Hatchery is located on the Wind River, just a few miles upstream of Bonneville Dam. These fish are not known to stray at excessive rates. Carson Hatchery is one of the oldest spring chinook hatcheries. It was started by collecting a rather random selection of upriver spring chinook that were passing Bonneville Dam. That kind of broodstock would never be done today, but nobody knew any better then. Carson hatchery fish were used to establish many hatchery programs all over the basin. The reason the wild fish in the upper Columbia are genetically nearly identical to Carson hatchery fish is Carson hatchery fish had upper Columbia genes when the program was started and Carson hatchery fish were used to re-establish spring chinook in many parts of the upper Columbia. The current "prefered" stock of fish used in the Upper Columbia has Carson ancestry. The wild fish up there have had Carson genes for ages. It has just gone back and forth.
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More and more hatchery programs incorporate wild fish into their broodstock. Some of the hatcheries that still don't incorporate wild fish into their broodstock release and collect fish in places where there are not any wild fish. These programs are very segregated from wild fish and don't have much effect on wild fish.
The programs in areas where there are lots of wild fish almost all incorporate wild fish into their broodstock.
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Rich's comments are nice, but in the Columbia Basin, we don't have well functioning ecosystems. If we didn't have hatcheries we wouldn't have fish.
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The Yakama and Wenatchee hatchery coho reintroduction program that was started with lower river coho has shown that these fish quickly addapt to their environment and now survive at levels just as high as many wild populations.
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How do we continue to think that we (humans) can fix or improve something mother nature has been doing for millions of years! Concrete tanks do not equal natural river beds. I understand the need for hatcheries, however, it would be a great day when all steelhead and salmon once again emerged from the gravel of their natal streams. Hatcheries are no substitute or fix to the problem of habitat degridation. Hatcheries may allow us to bridge the gap between the poor habitats we currently have and restored streams of the future, but for this to work we must concentrate a lot more effort on the restoration of natural systems. And many other beifits will follow!
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That would be a great day. But we are not their yet. We need hatcheries to support the abundance of fish, so we can have enough fish to take advantage of more productive habitat when and if we can fix that habitat.
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Because we also are 'mother nature,' in fact we coined the term. We also build homes for ourselves, and even cities. Why not a hatchery? Not much of a stretch.
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As far as I know, there is no data to support the contention that hatcheries do anything positive for rivers. If the same money was spent on improving the environment for fish, the fish would come back and occupy the environment. Hatcheries are a solution in search of a problem. They are expensive, non-sustainable and ultimately hurt rivers and wild fish.
Jeffry Gottfried, Ph.D.
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Restoring runs to areas where populations have been deemend extinct is positive....they return the same marine nutrients to those areas...
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Come on, Jeff, you know better than that or you better give up that Ph.D. after your name. As I noted on the program in a grammatically incorrect way, "it ain't a salmon ecosystem unless there are salmon in it." In the Umatilla, the Lower Snake, the Wenatchee, the Clearwater, the Imnaha and many other CR tributaries, the ecosystems are functioning better because there are now populations that spawn in their natal streams and contribute marine nutrients for the flora and fauna. That would not have even been possible without artificial propagation in many of these rivers.
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John,
You cite the Imnaha River as an example of a "functioning ecosystem" because there are hatchery salmon in it. Most of the salmon habitat in the Imnaha is in wilderness or forest service land and the habitat is nearly pristine.
You are apparently unaware that there is no evidence that hatchery supplementation has helped that natural Chinook population at all and may be hurting it. After 28 years of supplementation, the number of natural adults returning each year has not increased and the number of natural adults that return per adult that spawned them in nature has gone down. This is an indication that, at best, hatchery salmon are ineffective at producing the next generation of adults and/or, at worst, the hatchery program may actually be hurting the population.
Tim Hoffnagle, Ph.D.
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Regarding the Imnaha. Much of the habitat in the Upper Imnaha is in pretty good shape. Most of the river is in the Hells Canyon Recreation area, only some is in Wilderness. Some of it (Little sheep creek and the area just downstream is privately owned ranch land.)
There are water withdrawls, there is old mining and timber harvest damage. There are roads (some in good shape and some not). It is a very nice place, but not pristine. The Imnaha also sits upstream from 8 very large dams filled with warm water and predators.
The supplementation program has not by itself "restored" the wild fish up there and wont. What it has done is maintained the abundance of natural origin fish to stable levels and provided extra fish that support both mainstem and tributary fisheries. People living in Enterpise and Joseph can travel just down the road a peice and go catch a spring chinook if they want.
The average natural origin return to the Imnaha in the 1990's was 243 fish. In the 2000's it was 717. The returns have not been as high as Oregon and the tribes have hoped but they have not been terrible either. The program has evolved over time. The management agencies take adaptive management quite seriously and have made changes to the program over time and continue to learn more and make improvements to the program.
The key thing is that this program continues to support the abundance of natural origin fish to help minimize the risk of extinction while we continue to work on the real productivity issues which are in areas like the hydrosystem. As we gradually make improvements to juvenile survival through the hydrosystem and address things like excessive bird predation in the estuary, we expect that the supplementation program will give these fish the kick start they need to get well on their way to recovery.
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The best that you can say about the hatchery program on the Imnaha River is that it MAY have helped maintain the population - that can't be said definitively, however. What can be said is that it has not helped increase the number of natural adults that have returned to the river. Yes, that number has been higher in the last few years but you need to compare it to unsupplemented streams to see if the supplementation program has had an effect. What we have found is that the unsupplemented streams have also had their abundance of natural adults increase as the Imnaha popualtion has increased. The conclusion, therefore, is that the hatchery has not had much, if any, effect on the increase in natural adults. What we have also seen is that the number of adult offspring produced by naturally spawning salmon is lower in the Imnaha River than in unsupplemented streams in the Snake River Basin. That should not have happened if the hatchery program was beneficial.
And the habitat in the major spawning areas of the Imnaha River is pristine or nearly so. There are no major diversions nor mining or logging damage that remain in those areas (above Crazyman Creek - Chinook spawn well above Little Sheep Creek, as you should know).
As for the Chinook fishery in the Imnaha, it is usually of a very short duration because there are so few natural salmon and an overabundance of hatchery salmon. The Imnaha hatchery program is larger than it should be, which has been pointed out by independent scientific groups. The Imnaha River hatchery supplementation program is a classic example of one that is in desperate need of revision.
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It is an over statement to say that hatchery fish were a major issue with why fish were listed under the ESA.
Fish have been listed under the ESA because we have wrecked or eliminated the habitat for these fish and diminished their productivity.
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Nez Perce Tribal Hatchery uses natural rearing chanels for spring chinook to help fish adapt to natural conditions. Some hatcheries have also been working on underwater feeding systems to teach young fish to feed below the surface instead of looking for food thrown into the pond by people.
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Although I would assume that everything would be long cleared out of their system by the time they come back as adults, I would also worry about the use of antibiotics, fungicides and other chemicals to keep the hatchery fish "healthy"
Plus, on the table, hatchery fish are NOT farmed fish, there is a real difference between wild caught (whether they are true wild or hatchery) and farmed.
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The time to review this pratice is now. There are many reasons that hatcheries are counter productive to salmon recovery. This practice is too expensive & a very real threat to the remaining wild genetics that exist. The fact is you NEED wild fish to "refresh" the stale genetics of hatchery fish. By adding all these hatchery fish on top of the remaining wild fish you are reducing the survival rate of the wild fish. The mixing of genetics between wild and hatchery is also very serious threat to the long term survival of salmon. Hatchery fish don't have the survival skills and genetics to survive that the wild fish have.
This giant industrial fish complex is expensive and gives us a poor substitute for wild fish. The amount af money spent every year on this model of mitigation would be much better spent on habitat restoration. Look at a local example, the Mollala River, there was less than a 1,000 winter steelhead spawning when the hatchery fish in the system annually. Since the practice has been stopped the rate of wild reprduction has jumped to around 3,500 annually. All in the space of just a few years (generations), wild fish can come back if we give them the chance. We need to get off the crutch of hatcheries and really take a look at how we can use the vast amount of resources that are spent on hatcheries, barging them around dams and all of these other mitigation techniques, and look to spend this money on habitat for wild, self sustaining fish populations. Look at all the depressed populations along the lower Columbia river where dams don't have any role in limiting the fish populations, I believe habitat and wild fish should be the focus of recovery efforts. All these "fish breaucrats" have their budgets on the line and their opinions reflect the desire to protect budgets, jobs and this industrial and EXPENSIVE model.
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It's irresponsible to paint all hatcheries with the same brush. They are operated differently and some are having great success.
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Mr. Govin, I presume you are not talking about tribal hatcheries. If so, please clarify. If not, please be more precise in your use of the term, "hatchery fish."
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John,
I presume that you are not saying that tribal hatcheries are better than those run by state or federal agencies....are you? Some hatcheries are run better than others - there are better and worse tribal and non-tribal hatcheries. While I don't completely agree with Mr. Govin's comments, I see nothing wrong with his use of the term "hatchery fish."
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My point is and was that the tribes for whom I work (Yakama, Warm Springs, Umatilla, and Nez Perce) generally have a different policy objective for their hatchery systems; i.e. increasing the abundance of salmon populations spawning in restored or protected natural habitat. That is a different objective than, for instance, the lower river hatcheries below Bonneville Dam that were constructed to support non-Indian fisheries that were to be limited by hydro development. The treaty right includes the right to take fish at all usual and accustomed fishing places. That right, guaranteed by the United States, is not well-served by the hatchery system as it was created during the late 1940's through the 1970's. The tribes, for the last thirty years, have struggled to change that policy and are succeeding.
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John,
Again, you make it sound like the tribes are the only ones that have been working to reform the way that hatcheries are managed. That is hardly the case. There are both innovative and old school biologists that work for the tribes, as well as for other agencies. Let's give a little credit where credit is due and not just spin things in favor of your employers.
Hatcheries are here to stay. But the way that they are managed needs to be changed dramatically. That change is moving much more slowly than it should be and the tribes are just as guilty as most of the state and federal agencies that co-manage this resource.
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Tim, We humans haven't been very kind to salmon. We need to recognize what we've done and what we could have done had we paid attention to higher principles, among them justice. In fact, maybe a process of truth and reconciliation could move us forward like Rev. Desmond Tutu and Mandela espoused in South Africa.
But it's clear that the tribes kicked off the reform movement and have been its chief practitioners. And you can't argue with success. . . or can you?
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John,
You're a great politician and lobbyist for your clients. You make a conciliatory statement and then one more statement to one-up what you perceive as the competition. I'll admit that I'm not familiar with the history of hatchery reform (and I suspect that you aren't either) but I'm wondering if you can support your contention that "it's clear that the tribes kicked off the reform movement and have been its chief practitioners." If you can't back it up, let's not be making statements like that. I can document that the tribes that I work with are resisting hatchery reforms suggested by two independent scientific review groups. But the tribes aren't the only ones - other agencies are, as well, and BPA doesn't want to fund the work that they are mandated to do. So, there's plenty of blame to go around.
My hope is that some day we won't need hatcheries. That's probably unrealistic. More realistic is to find a way to make hatcheries function with minimal detrimental effect on the populations that we are trying to save (it is becoming increasingly clear that any time spent in a hatchery affects the fish in ways that make them less able to function in nature and there is no way to completely prevent that).
I work closely with tribal fisheries research biologists and have a great relationship with them (they are co-managers, collaborators and friends). I don't see this as a competition. But having people constantly trying to stick their chest out and show that their group is doing better isn't serving the resource. You know, it's amazing what you can get done when you don't care who gets the credit. From my view, as a fisheries biologist who evaluates the effects of hatcheries, I see both innovation and a lack of it in all groups. I've worked with tribes in North Dakota, Arizona and the northwest and have found that Indians are no different from non-Indians - some look to make improvements, while others just want the fish and don't care where they came from. So, let's just work together toward fixing what we have all broken and stop caring about who gets the credit.
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At the tribes' urging, Rep. John Breaux (D-LA) and John Forsythe (R-NJ) included report language in, as I recall, the FY 1982 authorization directing that Mitchell Act appropriations be used to assist naturally-spawning runs which the Act was not doing at the time. Also at the tribes' urging, Senator Hatfield included similar provisions in the appropriations acts. For the most part, lip service was paid to the tribes' recommendations, except in the Federal District Court and the Northwest Power Planning Council under the leadership of Governor Dan Evans.
There is much more history but this was the beginning of the shift to use of hatcheries for restoring and rebuilding naturally-spawning runs which has continued for the last thirty years. A much fuller account comes in the book, The Fight of the Salmon People, by Doug Dompier
http://www.amazon.com/Fight-Salmon-People-Blending-Tradition/dp/1413492975.
There is a lot of inertia within any bureacracy and old ideas die hard. I suggest that more recent reports and recommendations on artificial propagation are more reactions to the tribes' proposals than an honest appraisal of their effectiveness which could lead to real reform.
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Adult hatchery and wild fish eat the same thing in the ocean. They are going to taste the same. I doubt the chef can really tell the difference.
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Higgins perpetuates one of the "foodie" myths.
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While it may be possible to distinguish a difference in taste between a steak harvested from a steer and a steak harvested from a buffalo, I honestly doubt that anyone can truly tell the difference by taste and 'mouth-feel' between hatchery salmon and wild salmon.
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The acquired taste of taste.... . Folks convincing themselves that dark chocolate, oh, definitely tastes better. And, green tea, definitely tastes better. Oh, and, the more expensive wine is definitely superior. Then of course in the blind taste test they repeatedly fail. Acquired taste is really training yourself to enjoy things that don't inherently taste good. Or, either way you look at it, there is no certainty in any of it.
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When I was listening to a rebroadcast on the radio about how hatchery fish tasted different, I could hardly contain myself. EVERYONE on the show was confusing HATCHERY salmon with FARMED salmon. When someone buys a "wild" salmon from Oregon, Washington or Calif., they most likely are buying a hatchery raised fish (because most salmon off the OR/WA/CA coast is hatchery raised). However, it left the hatchery, went to sea and then came back. It was caught by a fisherman and sold as wild. Farmed fish aren't caught, they are harvested. One reason Higgins said he could tell the difference between "wild" and "hatchery" (sic) salmon by looking at them is that 95% of farmed salmon are Atlantic Salmon, not Pacific salmon. They look VERY different. (Atlantic have a more trout-like look to me, but that may just be me.) Follow this link to more info about farmed salmon from an industry website: http://www.salmonoftheamericas.com/oceanfarming/facts.html
I wish that someone during the show would have caught the mistake and corrected it.
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Hi
Could you ask your guests if they know about Dave Brown's Wild Fish Rescue Project in Clark County Washington?
Jean
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Odd, we are so concerned about how the dead fish taste. How about we just stop eating them---then we won't need hatcheries.
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But they're so tasty! Whether grilled, poached, or smoked, salmon is such a tasty dish! (Indeed, I consider myself a member of the PETA that actually has some common sense: People Eating Tasty Animals. Don't make me give up salmon!)
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If we aren't supposed to eat animals, why are they made out of meat? :)
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I keep missing all the posts with the common sense. Perhaps, I am not common enough to pick up on it.
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Scottmil,
Methinks you are baiting (pun intended), but I'll bite.
Salmon exist for their own sake, not for us to eat. (Having them around to eat is our great fortune.) So even if we stop eating them that is no reason to let them go extinct. That is what you seem to be implying by writing "we won't need hatcheries." If I am misinterpreting the sentiment, please let me know.
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Hatcheries, unfortunately, are a necessity. Unfortunately, they are the only option to replacing salmon that can no longer access their former spawning gorunds, such as the upper Snake and Columbia rivers. However, hatcheries most definitely produce fish that are inferior to natural salmon. Hatchery salmon do not reproduce as well in nature, so their use for restoring populations after (if?) we restore their habitat is very much in question. So, hatcheries must be used sparingly and should be run in such a manner that they put themselves out of business (i.e., quickly restore numbers so that a population can be self-sustaining).
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Fixing habitat is incredibly expensive. You can't just say spend the money that we spend on hatcheries on fixing habitat and expect the problems with fish to be fixed. We obviously need to spend a lot of money fixing habitat. We do spend tons of money trying to fix habitat, but it isn't going to be able to restore all the habitat to pre-development conditions.
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What gives any of you the right to pick winners and losers? I refer to sea lions, sea gulls, bull trout, etc....
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Well we certainly picked out some species to be loosers by building Grand Coolie Dam, the Hells Canyon Dams, Dworshak Dam, and many many others with no fish passage.
Salmon restoration programs are just trying to give some populations the Oportunity to be winners again.
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Well, they are sacred, apparently, and, also, it sounds like many feel that they taste real good. It is like the pretty versus the ugly. Or the tasty versus the not-so-tasty. It is really, all the way around, about self interest. The tribes want their religious icons, the eaters want their tasty meat, and the fisherman want the money. Not much of it is actually about the plight of the salmon per se. It is about how the plight impacts us.
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This really is about the wild fish. Without wild fish we are all diminished as people in the Northwest.
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For more information about the tribal programs, check out
www.critfc.org
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Mr. Platt,
Does the CRITFC web site give us the details about how the Nez Perce Tribe fabircated data for 8 years on the Lostine River to make the Chinook salmon hatchery program look more successful than it really is?
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That's a very serious accusation against a tribal government from someone who posts anonymously as an angler and refuses to provide any facts to support their assertion. Sounds like you hate Indian tribes as well as "hatchery fish." You sound like the kind of guy who gives "anglers" a bad name.
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There's a reason why I'm posting anonymously and it isn't because I hate the tribes or hatcheries. If anyone wants to know about that issue, ask the Nez Perce Tribe Fisheries Department about it. I guarantee that he won't want to talk about, it.
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Comments are now closed.
I contribute to OPB and I am a moderate, rational person. I was absolutely insulted with the way Emily introduced Chris Dudley, and Allen Alley. Emily was so unprofessional in her introduction of Chris, even Chris was smiling and shaking his head in the background. Who do you think makes jobs possible so people are able to support you when you cry for money. If you want anymore of my money you had better teach your moderators to be moderate. When KGW did had these men on to discuss views 2 weeks ago Tracy Barry was a true professional, and her political views are known, but she is a pro. Why these candidates wasted their time with you is probably just to show you they are not affraid of the usual Portland 'weird' crowd. Think I am just a bit disappointed, you are damn right.