grays river HSRG plan

http://www.hatcheryreform.us/hrp_downloads/reports/columbia_river/system-wide/4_appendix_e_population_reports/estuary-grays_river_fall_chinook_01-31-09.pdf

Recommendations
This Primary population is important to the ESU. The HSRG recommends a small, integrated, conservation program at the Grays River hatchery (94,000 uniquely tagged, but not adipose clipped, to avoid selective harvest) to sustain the population until natural productivity and abundance has improved to sustain the population.

when will the population improve enough to be able to sustain itself ?, never ?

Two words...

Unknown and experimental.

Judging by the past performance of attempts to make hatchery fish wild again... the probability of success is low. Languishing future productivity has a high likelyhood of constraining future fisheries immensely.

I guess that is more than two.

Linked Overhead Fire wrote:

Unknown and experimental.

what "best available science" are they applying here ??

from the HSRG homepage,

The Hatchery Scientific Review Group (HSRG) is the independent scientific panel established and funded by Congress to provide an autonomous and credible evaluation of hatchery reform as part of the Puget Sound and Coastal Washington Hatchery Reform Project. The objective of the HSRG is to assemble, organize, and apply the best available scientific information and to provide guidance to the policymakers and technical staff who are implementing hatchery reform.

http://www.lltk.org/pages/hatchery_reform_project/HRP_HSRG.html

what "best available science" are they applying here ??

Why, the unknown and experimental type of best available science, of course.

The run's so small, hard to see how it could recover even with supplementation. LOF, those numbers were a bit confusing to me, can you explain in english how many (what) the pNOS is? How many hatchery fish will be supplemented initially? They mention "by a factor of two", does that mean the pNOS will be 35% or 70% of the run?

I think boaters fish weirs are the only proven science in this scenario. I'd almost rather take the whole run and make native brood hatchery brats at will, then let the stray form a wild spawning NOS if it can, than have to endure years of languishing productivity. The genetic lineage would still be NOS.... If you can make hatchery fish wild again, doesn't this way have just as good a chance at succeeding as the supplementation method?

Hard to argue with Todd's "leave them alone" theory, if the run is currently 116(.9), and with one generation capable of 164 (1.8 ), that's a pretty substantial increase. 164 x 1.8=295, 295 x 1.8=531, 531 x 1.8=955, very close to the targeted run size of 1000 in 3 or 4 generations. I'm not sure the productivity rate doesn't increase with each successive generation as well, making the numbers even better. Throw in that hypothetical 10% habitat improvement and badda bing badda bang you're good to go... I mean if you're gonna throw that productivity number out there, wouldn't it be effort better spent to just go the no hatchery or fish weirs route?

There's quite a bit riding on this concept really. The stock is pretty typical of the others, pounded by brats for years, who knows what that did for long term productivity..

I don't trust the WDFW to objectively oversee the experimental fishery. With all of the opportunity they have to interpret any data, and their tendency to input and adjust the models for the DESIRED conclusion, they'll screw it up. You just know they will. Sure would like to see a scientific audit for stuff like this.

The thing that just bugs me is the increase in productivity, absent hatchery invasion. LOF said a .9 increase was low. I question that. Sure it's low by historical standards, or in comparison to other stocks (AK) productivity, but I can't see it as low for one main reason. It took much longer than one generation to bring the productivity down to .9. It only makes sense to me it's going to take proportionately longer to revive productivity. The same processes affecting the decline in productivity have to work in the reverse manner to improve productivity don't they? I can't figure out how it could increase so fast. Hope it does, but doubt it will.

If, by using NOS hatchery brood for hatcheries (F2 hatchery) instead of using wild broodstock for hatchery supplementation (after the initial supplementation), is the HSRG protecting the wild stock? Or, are they thinking it doesn't matter how many generations a stock has been hatchery raised?

I ask because if an F1 brat has the same wild spawning success as an F12 brat, or that either can have success rivaling native wild spawner's in one generation, it doesn't seem those phenotype influences are even worth noting. Otherwise, why not use wild NOS for hatchery brood every generation? Just doesn't add up.

if they do plant the 94k uniquely tag fish and get the population abundance up to 1400 fish what have they achieved ?, will the allowable esa take now be taken out of the 1400 fish ?

pNOS is % natural origin spawner.




WDFW made the bejeus belts out of Grays River fall Chinook for so long, and with such potency, the entire concept is, IMHO, off the chart ridiculous.

Hatchery production was terminated in the mid 1990s. After the various age classes from the the last hatchery brood year concluded their adult returns immediately went to nearly nothing.

Last year the electrified trap WDFW erected down low on the Grays caught mainly Rogue River stock fall Chinook strays from the Youngs Bay releases. Of the other fall Chinook trapped at this location (personal communication) the majority had ad-clips... meaning most were hatchery origin strays from other basins. Plus... in 2008 LCR fall Chinook age classes still had multiple years before mass ad-clips truly affected adult spawning runs. Intact adipose fins still doesn't mean "out of the gravel". It will not mean this until 2011.

This “wild” stock has the inherent capacity to cripple B10 and ocean fisheries. The same exact junk spewed by GL regarding his wild Cedar Creek coho minus the hatch boxes.

At the July CRC meeting in Astoria the CCA rep purported that this stock's overall exploitation rate needs to be lowered to 20%. That would be the end of Chinook retention for B10.

In a previous post I stated that the B10 fishery may not be like 2009 again until 2019. This GL style idea may push my thesis back towards hell freezing over.

This is simply the manifestation of the GL paradigm in a different location with a different stock.

How do you really feel LOF? Hey, the time comes where spitting needs to be done, you let me handle that OK. They'd expect it from the likes of me. We need you in the game.


How out of control is hatchery stray...holy cow. Years after cessation of hatchery production, stray from other hatcheries still outnumbers the wild NOS contingent. Frightening. And again, WDFW is trying to save a stock that's not representative of the actual NOS. This whole experiment sounds alarmingly like the Cowlitz sham. The only thing missing is truck and haul.

PS: I understood what pNOS is, I was hoping you could make sense of the numbers and save me a headache. If the supplementation is 94, 000, and the wild NOS is only 116, I can't see where the "factor of two" level of supplementation rule makes any sense.

"Often in nature, when a void exists, it creates an opportunity for extraordinary adaptation".


I can't help thinking an opportunity exists here, and we're doing everything we can to avoid it.

I keep having this vision of a CCA rock band, with GL as the lead vocals, jamming away in studio while Christopher Walken belts out "more catch boxes, we need more catch boxes"......

My thesis is this... the ancient wild population of Grays River fall Chinook past into the annals of history decades upon decades ago. Their Little Bighorn or Wounded Knee has already occurred and no freakin’ ghost dance is going to bring them back. Grays River hatchery power was immense. The ancient wild stock was converted to hatchery stock. When the hatchery power was terminated adult production evaporated.

Grays River “recovery” is going to be a ghost dance. Supplementation is hatchery. It’s just a new label slapped on the same record.



Tule smolts probably average 1% conversion to the adult life stage. 94.2K smolts will probably make just under 100 adults preharvest for any given brood year. Right now overall tule ERs are about 38% so around 62 adults from those releases should hit the Grays River proper for spawner escapement. More if the CCA rep fella gets his wish.

The average NOS escapement reported by the HSRG (unless tules from other hatchery programs are entering the system which they most assuredly are) is 50 adults annually. So I guess the HSRG is assuming they can glean all but one of the annual hatchery adults (with that electrified trap) and keep them from spawning with the NOS group. What the hell is the point of them making the 94.2K salmon smolts then?

Maybe I am missing something but why not then just make less salmon smolts at the hatchery in the first place? Release 250 smolts instead of 94.2K. You’d get about a quarter of a % adult production per brood year and when all the age classes begin to return in concert you’d have about 1 HOS for every 50 NOS.

That’s 2%. A hands free 2%.



See? In 2007 I freakin’ knew this GL BS eulogy had legs. It scared the shit out of me when I saw what he was perpetrating then. With the congregation he drew on Ifish I figured it was inevitable that it would permeate like a nasty fart into the future of fisheries.

Remember that commercial from decades ago with the teared up Indian looking at the trash heap? That is how I feel when I think about the Grays.

Hook line and sinker for all.



But hell... I’ve been wrong before.

Linked Overhead Fire wrote:

At the July CCR meeting in Astoria the CCA rep purported that this stock's overall exploitation rate needs to be lowered to 20%. That would be the end of Chinook retention for B10.

i`d imagine that 99 percent of the cca members dont realize this and i`d bet that if you wrote it up so that a 2 year old could understand it they wouldn't understand what your saying or believe you.

boater wrote:



i`d imagine that 99 percent of the cca members dont realize this and i`d bet that if you wrote it up so that a 2 year old could understand it they wouldn't understand what your saying or believe you.

I know boater. Christ I know!

Same shite I've been pointing out for two years...the CCA hopefuls don't have any idea what they are doing, where they are going...or where they are taking the rest of us with them.

Long ago I made a loooonnnggg post on some board or another connecting the dots between management in the CCA and big oil and big energy producers, and their customers.

Connections between PUD's on the Columbia and the major users of the electricity they make...aluminum companies...were easy to draw because they had the same things in common...the same lobbyist(s), asking for the same things.

The return of "wild salmon" to the Columbia, coupled with the end of fishing there, is part and parcel of the continued access to cheap energy...as usual, the public paying the price, and the private industries reaping the benefits.

GL is a tool in this...an ignorant tool, which is the way it has to be. Won't he be surprised, along with his sycophants?

I won't be, but I'd rather put a stop to it than accept it and say "I told you so" when it happens.

Fish on...

Todd