Hatchery Salmon Cannot Replace Disappearing Wild Fish

By J.R. Pegg

WASHINGTON, DC, March 26, 2004 (ENS) - A federal advisory panel of scientists convened by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has concluded that hatchery fish cannot maintain populations of wild salmon in the long term and should not be used to justify proposed removal of federal protections for wild salmon. But these findings appear to run contrary to the policies of the Bush administration, which told the panel that its conclusions go beyond science and into policy and are thus inappropriate for official reports.

The committee, which was formed to serve as an external review committee for the Pacific salmon recovery efforts, published its findings in the current issue of the journal "Science," a publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.

The scientists said the decision to publish was taken out of the panel's concern for the recovery of wild salmon in California, Oregon, Washington and Idaho. They want to ensure the policy implications of their findings are not suppressed but reach a wide audience.

"We should not open the legal door to maintaining salmon only in hatcheries," said University of Washington ecologist Robert Paine, coauthor of the report and chairman of the panel. "The science is clear and unambiguous - as they are currently operated, hatcheries and hatchery fish cannot protect wild stocks."

A male coho salmon with spawning coloration. (Photo by E.R. Keeley courtesy University of BC)

The findings come at a critical time for salmon recovery in the Pacific Northwest.

Last month a federal appeals court dismissed a challenge to a lower court's decision that invalidated the listing of Oregon coast coho salmon as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act because NMFS failed to include hatchery fish in its assessment of the species' population.

The Bush administration did not appeal the lower court decision, instead it ordered NMFS to draft criteria for including or excluding hatchery fish in a population and pledged to complete a review of eight Columbia River populations of coho salmon by March 31.

The agency is also considering petitions to delist 15 wild salmon populations in Oregon, California, Idaho and Washington that are now protected under the Endangered Species Act.

The Paine committee warns that counting hatchery fish in with endangered wild salmon would create the legal possibility of maintaining a stock solely through hatcheries. They contend there is ample science to support the agency's past position that hatchery fish should not be included in population counts used to determine the status of wild salmon and steelhead stocks.

Hatchery spawned fish can harm wild fish by introducing disease and altering the unique genetic makeup of the species in the wild.

In addition, fish bred and fed in hatcheries are often larger than their wild cousins, grow quickly, and compete with them during early life stages in freshwater streams and estuaries.

The IUCN-World Conservation Union has also concluded, based on scientific consensus from research on land dwelling species, that reliance on artificially raised individuals is unwise and cannot conserve species in the long term.

Wild salmon are considered by many to be an irreplaceable icon of the Pacific Northwest. (Photo courtesy Columbia & Snake Rivers Campaign)

The battle over Endangered Species Act protection for Pacific Northwest salmon reflects the major threat to salmon and steelhead all along the West Coast - habitat loss from land development and extractive resource activities.

The legal challenges to listing of salmon populations have come primarily from developers and logging companies in the Northwest.

Listing salmon populations as ecologically sensitive units under the Endangered Species Act gives the federal government the ability to limit development and resource extraction that degrades or destroys the habitat.

Conservationists fear without such protection the future is bleak for wild salmon and steelhead - a belief echoed by the advisory panel.

"One hundred years of hatcheries have not brought back wild Atlantic salmon to Maine," said lead author Ransom Myers, a fisheries biologist based at Dalhousie University in Canada. "Once we lose the wild populations of salmon and the natural habitats that support them, we will never get them back."