A recent letter to the editor (April 14, “Model hatchery program”) claimed that a hatchery supplementation program on a tributary of the South Fork Salmon River in Idaho greatly increased the overall run size.
The writer urged policy makers to rely more heavily on hatchery programs to restore salmon runs in Washington.
What the writer didn’t mention is that a scientific review of that study by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife (Hess, et al., 2012) found the study to be seriously flawed and of little use in increasing salmon runs.
The authors said, “The results and conclusions of this study are not consistent with the message in recent press releases. There was no conclusion in the paper that the study demonstrated that ‘hatcheries rebuild abundant salmon populations’ as was highlighted in the press.”
In fact, the scientific literature has shown consistently that hatchery supplementation reduces wild salmon runs and harms the genetic fitness of salmon overall.
The main causes for the decline of our once massive runs of salmon are usually called the four H’s: harvest (over-harvest of salmon); hydro (run-killing dams on rivers); habitat (destruction of stream habitat by development and industrial logging); and hatcheries (which harm wild salmon in multiple ways).
Hatcheries are not the answer.
We need to reform industrial logging practices, rebuild healthy stream habitat and stop the serious over-harvest of a species in danger of extinction.
Wild salmon can rebound in massive numbers if given half a chance.
Hatcheries take that chance away.
Josey Paul,
Joyce