Sign the Petition, Pro Hatchery and Wild

[44mag2ndamend]

Just found this on another website that is not my favorite, But this will do some positive things. I encourage all to read and sign.

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[Dunerunner]

Done!!

 

[cookie]

Don. e But what about genetically engineered fish

 

[Dunerunner]

Don. e But what about genetically engineered fish

Do you mean the Triploids? I think they should be gotten rid of and the hatchery program revamped to breed a wider sampling of native fish.

 

[cookie]

Do you mean the Triploids? I think they should be gotten rid of and the hatchery program revamped to breed a wider sampling of native fish.

No I mean genetically engineered fish this is the first like I found,, Center for Food Safety | Video | CFS Videos | GE Fish | Stop GE Fish

 

[44mag2ndamend]

I think mainly this is the response for the Native Fish Society and their lawsuits wishing to close the hatchery programs which have kept the population intact despite commercial over-harvesting and various other detrimental factors.

Mankind would have eaten the last fish long ago without hatcheries. Looked what happened to Elk.

 

[Dunerunner]

This is, or would be; a farm raised fish. No guarantee they would not get into the anadromous habitat. Didn't any of these fools watch Jurassic Park!!

 

[44mag2ndamend]

Oh boy here we go!

Oregon has been running Jurassic Park for over 100 years now! ha!


More Jurassic Park, More Jurassic Park,

I am seeing something here.

 

[Dunerunner]

The hatchery program is a failed enterprise because it does little to revitalize and support the native fisheries. The sampling if natives is way too narrow in the current program and monies would be better spent creating more native hatchery habitat and allowing returning fish to spawn in that environment rather than collecting eggs and manipulating the water temperatures to produce Trips.

Damn, I am old enough to remember huge returns of Salmon and Steelhead in the coastal rivers. My Granddad used to take huge salmon out of the Santiam!! Enforce the regs, change the laws with regard to Native American Fishing to something more aligned with todays civilization and restore the populations.

Oh boy here we go!

Exactly!!

 

[44mag2ndamend]

So the solution lies with letting the Native Fish Society sue and close hatcheries and take all that money with their court winnings and buy back the 90 % loss of fish habitat?

Not ever happen.

I'm pro hatchery. I would rather catch one or more when I make a trip instead of wishing to see one.

Keep in mind the Elk never came back from the lows of early 1900's. I did my research.

 

[mkwerx]

Would I prefer to see native stocks rebound? In a perfect world, yes.

Do I want there to be fish - hatchery or wild - in the river for me to fish for? Damn right.

Do I think salmon and steelhead fishing has much of a future left in Oregon? No.

Groups like the McKenzie Fly Fishers and the NFS are using the courts to shut down hatchery programs, and dam operators and the states, who were legally bound to produce hatchery fish to off set the damage done by impounding water and blocking passage - are loving it. They get to keep their money and stop operating hatcheries, or reducing hatchery output. Anglers in the Columbia Basin now get to pay $10 a year to fund a welfare program for commercial interests, and we're getting excluded from certain sections of the river in favor of commercials. We're seeing reductions in summer steelhead and some salmon programs on a number of systems, and a paltry increase in winter run fish on others from whats left of the hatchery program. Wild fish stocks still won't be rebounding.

Man has done a LOT of damage to the most important parts of the rivers - through development near rivers and streams, agriculture, and poor logging practices. Tributary streams get choked with mud and sediment, reducing successful spawning area or choking out eggs. Logging operations cut within feet of tributary stream banks (check google maps satellite view if you don't believe me, or haven't been out in the woods lately).

Polluted run off from farms, roads, housing and commercial development dumps poison into a large percent of the river systems - from small feeder creeks to the big rivers. Dams block fish passage upstream, and turn into a meat grinder for outmigrating fish. They create buffets for sea lions and other predators.

Until we can get a handle on a lot of the man-made influences, native fish stocks won't recover to any appreciable percentage. And of course there are other things we can't control - ocean conditions and high seas fishing from other countries. Until we threaten a shooting war with Canada or Japan - they'll continue to harvest *our* fish in the ocean.

So I'd rather see hatchery production ramped up 10x, and/or the introduction of new species in the mix to establish new fisheries that may succeed where the native/wild fish we have now haven't. Sea run brown trout would be interesting. It would also be interesting to see how Atlantic salmon would fare in some fisheries.

We have a 5 month long trout fishing season on 99% of streams west of the cascade summit. Some of those streams have a 1 month season. A large number of them are flat out closed to any fishing.

License fees are on a slow but steady increase. Fishing opportunities aren't increasing with the extra cash flow. ODFW does a really crappy job at managing the resources we have now - and the other state agencies that should play a big part in fish recovery don't seem to be working together very well.

We need a change in logging practices - larger buffers around all streams, even if it's a 1' wide crick, as these trickles eventually become bigger streams and it all snowballs. Bad habitat upstream will lead to bad habitat downstream. We also need to open MORE land to timber harvest. Loggers wouldn't need to cut so close to the streams, if the damn state and feds would open more public timberlands to harvest. The greenie weenies won't admit that young trees are better at sucking CO2 from the air than old growth trees. Then again, they say CO2 is a pollutant, when it's a necessary link to the chain of life...

We also need to better mitigate and stop other pollution sources (like putting a stop to sewer overflows into rivers, mainly) and re-evaluate how closely to streams that development can occur - including road building, home building, etc.

More money should be budgeted for habitat improvements. Getting support from the private industry should be a priority - getting them interested and on-board to the idea, and making it profitable for all parties involved can be accomplished. Maybe that means some sort of tax benefit for private participants if they meat certain habitat goals, I'm not sure. For sure, if the fish stocks start coming back and more opportunities arise - that would generate more license sales so ODFW would also benefit.

The only other way to go - is the closure of all streams to salmon and steelhead fishing, period. I wouldn't actually be opposed to that either - for a trial term. It might be the only way to get groups like the NFS to see that suing hatcheries out of business is a bad practice. Wild fish won't magically appear if the hatcheries are shut down overnight. I wouldn't be opposed to a 5 or 10 year closure of all migratory fish producing waters - either statewide, or in a given zone - as a trial to see what happens. Of course, during that 5-10 years, we'd also have to track stream habitat improvement, ocean conditions, commercial fisheries impact (and frankly, if we close sport fishing down, commercial fishing should equally be shut down. Let them farm salmon in freshwater ponds on land - or find other jobs. The netter fleets on the Columbia are mostly part-time fishers making extra money - it's not their full time job or primary income, but sport anglers are funding the commercials at the price of $10 per anglers now for all salmon/steelhead anglers fishing on any stream that flows into the Columbia.)

If the fish don't show major increases in population after the short closure period - then personally, I would want to see either a massive hatchery program reimplemented (and that could mean stocking salmon/steelhead bread from wild fish or current hatchery stocks or introduction of new species like I mentioned earlier), or we just say goodbye to salmon/steelhead fishing. That would probably also mean the end of trout fishing on most streams too, because of the potential harm to salmon or steelhead smolt. No more coastal cutthroat fishing. No more chasing redbands on the Deschutes or McKenzie. That's not the approach I would prefer.

Alaska has struck a good balance between hatchery production and healthy wild populations. The great lakes region has thriving salmon/steelhead fisheries - fisheries that are ONLY there because of hatchery plants beginning a century ago.

Then again, Oregon has had hatchery fish for over a century ourselves, and the likelihood of there being any pure strain wild/native fish left in the rivers, without a little hatchery fish genetics in them, seems pretty damn slim. But the anti-hatchery types will tell you hatchery fish are bad, genetically inferior specimens. Seems pretty simple to me - doesn't matter if it's a hatchery or gravel spawned fish - any fish that makes it out of the stream, dodging birds, bears, badgers, bigger fish, fishermen, and other predators - then survives the ocean - sharks, bigger fish, more birds, commercial fisherman, sport fisherman, seals, sea lions and space aliens, then returns to their home rivers only to once again have to dodge more predators - is a damn worthy specimen, adipose fin or no adipose fin. These are the fish that should be spawning - these are the strongest of the bunch. But the anti hatchery people will tell you hatchery fish are all droooling retards that only managed to make it back to the rivers by dumb luck, and shouldn't be allowed to spawn. They're too stupid to be allowed to live or reproduce.

And once the NFS has the hatcheries and the fisheries shut down, they will happily travel to Idaho, Wyoming, Montana, or maybe Chile, New Zealand, Scotland, or Ireland and fish for big rainbows, brown trout, or brookies - all fish that were stocked and are non native. THey'll probably preach the sermon of the wild fish while landing their tenth big brown of the trip, on a water where there were at one point, no brown trout ever. Or maybe it'll be a big rainbow. Because you know, rainbow trout are "native" to new zealand, right? I doubt many NFS or MFF types would be caught dead swinging flies for big lipped suckers, or maybe mountain white fish.

This is the last year I plan on purchasing a salmon/steelhead tag, unless Oregon more than doubles the hatchery production on the coastal rivers. No point in fishing, when there aren't that many fish to go around.

 

[billdeserthills]

I did it

 

[salmonriverjohn]

There's room for both wild and hatchery raised period. I just love when I hear and read remarks from those who scream that wild fish are the only fish worth putting money into.
ALL hatchery stock were at one time diverted WILD stock that were directed into hatchery's via electric barriers and then selectively used for stock. NO adipose fins were clipped for identification purposes back then. When the hatchery's had their quota + a surplus that were given to those who were willing to raise them in hatchery boxes, the diversion weirs were shut down and the rest were normally allowed passage.

Then along came those that touted the hatchery fish were genetically inferior and had to be marked as hatchery fish by cutting their adipose or other fin to mark them as being hatchery stock. Form that forward the fish that were unmarked became wild, and the rest were "inferior" hatchery fish, even though they were using wild stock for egg retention the previous spawning. I've been to the meeting, been one on one with the big mucky mucks that make all the never end changes based on some other egg heads hypothesis, nothing based in tried and tested fact, just hypothesis folks, I mean heck if their idea didn't prove sound it was on to the next brilliant idea right? And I've seen first hand some of the havoc that's created by these highly edumacated idiots.
I took on the closure of the Cutthroat trout fishing here on the coast, and won. You and your kids can now once again fish for these aggressive ocean going rockets. Why had they closed it? Because of an endangered eastern cutthroat that is indigenous to Idaho, that's right Idaho, these fish here never even cross tails with their eastern cousins, but a full closure made perfect sense to them, go figure.

How about Walleye? ever open a non native species belly and see all the "wild" and hatchery smolt in there? Hmm. But we'll pay big big cash to rid the rivers of another species (chub) that we can point the finger at and say,, see there, there's the culprit!

Lets try introducing a non native species of wolf into a range that they never inhabited and see how the other prey species react to a predator that's almost twice the size of the species they say they need to repopulate (reintroduce) introduce, poppycock.

This could go on and on all day, the list of epic failures that has become the hallmark for the ODFW. But I'll just sum up my feelings to say that YES, we need more hatchery fish and ZERO retention of wild fish, if there are any true wild stocks of anadromous left. Don't forget those inferior hatchery fish were spawning with their wild brothers and sisters for decades, and still are regardless of the fact that they had that unsightly fleshy fin knocked off when they were cute little smolt. Oh and as a side note, only around 80% of hatchery fish are actually clipped, the rest slip through, are wire coded or are hatched in stream beds (even though they like to say they can't physically do that, bahh) and as such are deemed wild.

If I sound a little sarcastic, that's because I've seen with my own eyes over many decades
the reason the ODFW has acquired the moniker "Oregon dept of failure and waist" and have very little faith left. Yes, more hatchery fish.

 

[salmonriverjohn]

To mKwerx,, well said! I can imagine a conversation over a few beers between the two of us.:drink:

 

[Caveman Jim]

I agree SRJohn, I too have almost given up, sold the boat and all my gear because of the "Manage to extinction" by the same agencies who are supposed to provide the resource.
Hatcheries are needed due to the dwindling numbers of returning fish. Wild fish are hatchery fish that spawn on gravel and true Native fish are not in existence anymore thanks to the gill and tangle nets of tribes and NT commercial fishers!!! In Grays Harbor rivers we have been told by WDFW that over 48% of returning fish to our watershed are intercepted by Alaskan & Canadian gill netters!!! 48%!!!! What does that tell us about the whole West coast fisheries?

 

[salmonriverjohn]

Amen Jim,, well said.

 

[Black Dog]

I see people using the WORD NATIVE in some of the post. If you think about it they have been planting fish from hatchery's sense the late 1800's in all the rivers. (trout,salmon,steelhead) So how many native fish do some people think are left. They have been mix breeding for so long that there are none left that have not mixed with hatchery fish. In the Willamette the (OFW) has been trying to bring the WILD Spring Chinook stocks back for 15 years now. When they started the program they had 10% wild hatched fish coming back. Who knows how many of those fish were mixed with a hatchery fish at the spawning grounds. Now 15 years later guess what they still only have 10% wild stock returning. There numbers have been depleted to the point that they will never recover! It's going to take one heck of a hatchery program to get enough fish back to the spawning grounds to get the WILD hatched fish to recover.

 

[broncman]

My 2c is if you ever fished Steelhead(90% Hatchery) and trout(Hatchery Rainbow) on the Salmon River (Mt.Hood) back in the 80's and 90's would know what stopping the stocking of both hatchery Steelhead and Rainbow trouts does to a river. It makes a river that was once one of the top Steelhead rivers in the N.W. that Jim Teeny made several fly fishing shows on and makes it so that the river is pretty much dead. No Steelhead and no Rainbows in the river now makes the river just about useless to any sportsfishermen.

Oh and this all happened within 1-2 years after the stocking was stopped. So for 10+ years the above river has been void of just about all fish. I don't claim to know all the facts I just know what I have seen.

My question to all the 100% Native fish whiners out there.

What do you call the off spring of two hatchery fish that spawn in the wild?
According to the Regulations that fish just became a Native/Wild fish.
So now after years of stocking and hatchery fish spawning what would you call a native/wild fish?

 

[salmonriverjohn]

Broncman, you can thank the jack wagon at the Welches fly shop for that. He petitioned to get the entire river closed to anything but fly fishing, then to have only a wild fishery. You should stop in and tell them your feelings. He started this approx. 25 years ago, then moved to the Clackamas river to make it a fly fishing only all through the upper stretches.

 

[broncman]

I am sure it wasn't just him cause if that is true I would be able to end all this Anti-Gun crap in Oregon by myself. I am sure he knows or knew the right people to make it happen without input or studies as to what would happen.
Funny thing is a couple years ago my Dad got a call from the ODFW or someone wanting to come down to his place (Used to be one of the best fishing holes on the river)and count the fish. He laughed and said to the guy what fish. Said person asked what he meant and Dad told him that we hadn't see a steelhead or salmon in several years. No one came out to count the fish......still haven't seen any steelhead but there are some salmon coming back but nowhere near the numbers there used to be (now that Marmot Dam is gone and they stopped transporting the fish to Roslin lake or back to the mouth of the Sandy). Nice to see but salmon were always catch and release on the Salmon river anyway.

I guess I am just upset cause I grew up fishing the river and now there is litteraly nothing to fish for. I just wish they would stock Rainbows again so that maybe my son could enjoy the river if only in a little way like I did. Now it is just a place to throw rocks and swim what a shame.