Hoorah for Hatchery Fish

[Tony Buzolich]

I just thought I'd throw this bone out there for everyone to argue over. And, I'm probably going to speak out of both sides of my mouth, just for the fun of discussion.

With all the crap that's been going on about water robbery, tunnels, tearing down dams, building new dams, saving the delta, etc. how can we ever complain about having too many "hatchery" fish in our rivers?

The world is changing faster than I like. And as I get older it seems to change even faster. I guess being old lets you remember how the good old days used to be and how good things were when you were a kid growing up. Maybe we didn't appreciate it as much then, but I'd sure like to have some of it back now.

There's been a lot of chatter about saving the salmon and steelhead in our rivers and I whole heartedly support this. But how is the best way to do it? Is tearing down dams going to help increase the population growth of these fish at the expense of human water supply? Sure, I'd like to think we could return to the way things used to be, but things aren't like they used to be. We've got an unbelievable change in our population growth. And we all drink water.

A few years back (maybe 15-20?) the Feather and the American rivers were full of salmon. I was guiding salmon then on foot and we had some fantastic fishing days for several years. The hatchery in Oroville was over max capacity for handling all the salmon that were coming back to spawn. I know this because I had a little brother driving a rendering truck hauling the overage away. He was hauling spawned and unspawned carcuses away by the tons. Drums and drums of eggs included. The hatchery just couldn't handle any more. And, the fishing in the rivers was good. Everybody was catching lots of fish. Hatchery reared fish.

So, along the way comes some do gooder saying that these are mostly "hatchery" fish and they're NOT good for the system. " Hatchery fish are weaker". "We need to rebuild our native run and naturally spawned fish". "We need to let them return to their natural spawning grounds hundreds of miles farther upstream". ?????? Wouldn't that be nice?

Well, here we are. Trying to support a good idea. Trying to make things the way they were a hundred years ago. Wishful thinking but not very realistic. Our world today is not like it was a HUNDRED years ago. We've grown leaps and bounds and we're running out of room,,,,,,,,, and water.

Hatcheries were built with the idea of increasing the supply of fish to an ever increasing population of people. And it works. And we all catch fish. Native naturally spawned fish? No. But at least we have fish. And most people are happy.

My point with this editorial is only an old man's rambling thinking about how things used to be. Our world is not the way it used to be and we need the technology that hatcheries have brought us to at least get some fish back into our rivers. We can't turn back time and fish those untouched streams of a hundred years ago,,,,,,,,, there aren't any.
Tony

[the_gnarwhale]

Sweet blog. Manifest Destiny isn't cool anymore. Biodiversity is good for everything in the long run. Including humans. Sacrificing that so you can catch a few more fish in the short term is near sighted and bad for future generations.

[Rich Morrison]

I like your style Tony. I remember those school trips to the Oroville hatchery back in the late 70's and early 80's and the ridiculous numbers of Salmon we saw. It's probably been posted here before, but the book An Entirely Synthetic Fish by Anders Halverson is a great book on the history of hatchery trout. There is some good discussion about the original strain of McCloud Rainbows from a hatchery that is now under Lake Shasta. There's a dam not going anywhere any time soon. It's a very interesting subject - thanks for a good post on it.
Rich

[Ralph]

Tony, I'll keep this to one river that happens to be in your back yard, the Yuba. How, in any way, shape or form would giving fish passage through Englebrite and allowing them another 40+ miles of river to spawn negatively affect you? Englebright does not provide flood control or water delivery storage, and the small amount of hydropower it provides could be achieved with a run of the river system. The only reason the dam exists in it's current state is lack of will by the powers that be.

There are HUNDREDS of dams here in the west that have outlived their usefulness and block fish passage (among other things). Removing key dams would strongly reduce our dependence on hatcheries. Hatcheries are NOT self sustaining. Look at the other river in your backyard, the Sac and what happened at the Coleman hatchery. Only a few (I think 3) generations of in-breeding steelhead stocks was enough to breed out the instinct to go to sea. The fish were released and they simply milled about in the river. This was only corrected by bringing in WILD steelhead to cross their genetics with the hatchery fish so they could figure out how to make basic survival decisions. The hatcheries require wild, genetically intact fish to survive. You can have your hatcheries, but you better figure out how to have enough wild, native fish to keep your pipe dream alive.

[wineslob]

How many fisheries do we enjoy that are completely artificial?

I can think of a few right off the top of my head.

[donkeyhunter007]

biodiversity is crucial for the health of the planet.......... maintaining the gene pool of salmonids is crucial to avoid mass die off of fish.....fish come back at varying times to also help against drought taking out the whole run...... I have a theory about adipose clipped fish being detrimental to wild fish...... as far as water for everyone heres are a couple ideas... off stream water storage filled with excess winter flow.....water catchment systems on all new construction..... If there is ONE thing on this planet that should be illegal to profit off is water...we all need it to live. Wars have been and will be fought in the future over water get ready. We may have to invade CANADA if we get thirsty enough.

[ycflyfisher]

Tony,

This seems to me like just another one of your rants, where you attempt to impose your opinions on everyone else, so I’m not going to waste time on any of your individual “talking points”.

I will however state that it’s this very common myth that hatcheries “are working” that is the pipe dream concept of reality and not what you're implying. And that it’s that shared, common perception that hatcheries "are working" that creates the massive public pressure that keeps the fisheries professionals from implementing more sensible and sustainable management practices in regards to artificial propagation. Adaptive Management should be allowed to be well…adaptive, and it hasn’t been in regards to hatchery production.

The reality is that artificial propagation has not only failed miserably and will continue to fail miserably, but that hatchery products have and DO imperil self-sustaining populations not only via genetic introgression but also via intraspecies competition and by other means. And if you wanted to read the mountains of science that says so, you would have done so by now. That’s been provided on this forum numerous times.

There’s literally nothing that mankind could have possibly created to insure that factors that shape density dependent survival will ALWAYS work against self-sustaining populations of salmonids than hatchery salmonids.

It isn’t and shouldn’t be about what’s best for fisherman and guides like yourself who are happy with severely truncated, degraded rivers that are occasionally, but inconsistently full of fake, hatchery fish. It’s about what’s best for the sustainable survivability of species and DPSs that have been imperiled.

Tell you what Tony, if you’re really interested in educating yourself buy and read Jim Lichatowich’s two books:

Salmon Without Rivers- A History of the Pacific Salmon Crisis
Salmon, People & Place- A Biologist’s Search For Salmon Recovery

There’s no way anyone who reads Jim’s first book can possibly come away thinking hatcheries have been a successful solution.

Read the second and you’ll understand completely why some of us think they’re part of the problem.

[ycflyfisher]

Look at the other river in your backyard, the Sac and what happened at the Coleman hatchery. Only a few (I think 3) generations of in-breeding steelhead stocks was enough to breed out the instinct to go to sea. The fish were released and they simply milled about in the river. This was only corrected by bringing in WILD steelhead to cross their genetics with the hatchery fish so they could figure out how to make basic survival decisions. The hatcheries require wild, genetically intact fish to survive. You can have your hatcheries, but you better figure out how to have enough wild, native fish to keep your pipe dream alive.

That really isn’t true.

The truth is that anadromy is largely accepted scientifically as a survival response on the part of Pacific salmonids to increase their respective abundance in what were fairly harsh in-river environs long before humans began altering rivers. Before human alteration, Pacific rivers were still plagued with issues like thermal conditions during the summer that were far from fish friendly, intense inter- and intra- species competition for limited food resources at every life stage, and for the most favorable in-river habitat (both in terms of avoiding predation and environmental factors). Pacific salmonids adapted to those harsh in-river conditions by becoming anadromous where they could exploit the much more limitless Pacific for explosive growth, increased recruitment at spawning, with the added benefit of not being dependent on their inland habitat for years at a time over multiple age classes which allowed them to bridge long periods of adverse inland conditions.

Since anadromy was the survival strategy that allowed Pacific salmonids to increase their abundance, anadromous life histories became the most common. There were still completely riverine components in populations of Pacific salmonids (O. Mykiss in particular) and there still are, but those are USUALLY small components and are considered to be some of the deviant LHs that any healthy population of adaptable O. Mykiss and to a lesser extent other Pacific salmonids will express. All healthy populations of Pacific salmonids will express numerous LH’s that deviate from the “norm” and it’s those deviant LHs that allow them to adapt and sustain population abundance under changing or deleterious environmental conditions.

Dams are a bad thing because they truncate rivers and on severely truncated rivers like the Feather, American, Russian, etc, there’s only a small portion of the main stems left for the salmonids to exploit, and that limited habitat also tends to become degraded by factors like channelization from controlled flows and sediment transport with zero gravel replenishment.

However, some dams like the dams on the upper portion of the lower Sac and the Yuba (where there’s huge beds of mining tailings providing constant gravel recruitment) have made the habitat that remains much more fish friendly than it ever has been. The dams on the Sac and the Yuba both created year round fish friendly thermal regimes, both have huge inventories of abundant aquatic inverts (where rivers like the Lower Feather and American are limited to basically a few species of mays and caddis largely because of substrate issues), and huge egg drops and corresponding huge winter YOY emergence from the still predominately anadromous Chinooks.

In other words, human intervention has made the habitat left on the lower Sac and Yuba much more fish friendly, damn near aquarium-like, than it ever was prior to human intervention. The self-sustaining populations of steelhead (which are nothing more than O. Mykiss with anadromous LHs) in those two rivers did what any healthy population of predominantly anadramous O. Mykiss would do when environmental conditions shift the favorable conditions from the salt to their inland environs: They residualized and stayed in the river and the small percentage of non-hatchery O. Mykiss that are still expressing anadromous lifehistories as a survival strategy, became the deviants. The Coleman facility had nothing to do with it. It’s actually a dynamic shift you’d predict any predominately anadromous O. Mykiss population to undergo if inland conditions become not just favorable, but ideal, like they have in the Sac and the Yuba.

PS- Thanks Frank for your contribution. You're awesome dude!

[Ralph]

In a nutshell, what you are saying is that anadromous fishes are adapting to hatchery conditions and that is how things should be. Anadromy is no longer necessary. Good on you and go to hell.

[ycflyfisher]

In a nutshell, what you are saying is that anadromous fishes are adapting to hatchery conditions and that is how things should be. Anadromy is no longer necessary. Good on you and go to hell.

No Ralph, in a nutshell, what I'm saying is exactly what I said: The once predominantly anadromous O. Mykiss of the lower Sac and the Yuba adapted to more favorable inriver conditions (not hatchery conditions) by becoming predominantly riverine (non-anadromous).

Now if you don't agree with that, please take the time to explain to everyone why it is that you think that both the lower Sac and Yuba have abundant, wild populations of resident bows, but virtually no wild steelhead.

[Randy Lee]

Another fine mess we got ourselves into Ollie!

[Ralph]

"In other words, human intervention has made the habitat left on the lower Sac and Yuba much more fish friendly, damn near aquarium-like, than it ever was prior to human intervention."

May I suggest you are out of your mind. 150 years ago the fish were numbered in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, today a few thousand make a "good" run and up to 90% of those are genetically altered hatchery fish. The rivers used to be braided and densely wooded. Cellulose debris was abundant as was the distribution of substrate size ranging from grains of sand to giant boulders. Swamp-like sloughs, backwaters, and floodplains created vital habitat for smolt rearing. To suggest we have created salmonid shangri-la by building dams, turning the hydrograph on its head, straightening rivers, destroying flood plains, removing mate selection, and reducing genetic diversity by an order of magnitude sounds like something co-written by the Army Corp of engineers and PG&E as they try to sell an ignorant public on an ill advised boon doggle.

You need to get your head out of your books and open your eyes. It would be worth your while to visit some of the un dammed rivers in Alaska where only wild fish roam (by the tens of millions) to get some sort of sense of what a healthy eco system looks like. Your words are dangerous if even a single person is swayed by your ignorant ramblings.

[Tfisher]

No Ralph, in a nutshell, what I'm saying is exactly what I said: The once predominantly anadromous O. Mykiss of the lower Sac and the Yuba adapted to more favorable inriver conditions (not hatchery conditions) by becoming predominantly riverine (non-anadromous).

Now if you don't agree with that, please take the time to explain to everyone why it is that you think that both the lower Sac and Yuba have abundant, wild populations of resident bows, but virtually no wild steelhead.

I didn't wanted to enter this discussion, but do want to answer your question and provide a correction to the statement that O. Mykiss in the L. Sacramento or Lower Yuba "adapted" to "more favorable" in river conditions. I believe you are confusing the principles of fitness and selection with the term "adapted."

It's scientifically incorrect to state that O. mykiss somehow chooses its resident form over its anadramous form when confronted with "more favorable" conditions. What is true is that the selection pressure on the anadramous forms is decreasing their fitness in relation to the resident form. Thus, using your example of O. mykiss is the Lower Yuba, some of the progeny of O. mykiss leave to complete an anadramous life cycle, however when confronted with the construct of the degraded delta ecosystem/ocean conditions etc. are never heard from again. Because they do not return to spawn (or return in such low numbers) to pass down their fitness to the next generation, those that remain (the in river form) are those that we continue to see propagate.

[TonyMuljat]

I didn't wanted to enter this discussion, but do want to answer your question and provide a correction to the statement that O. Mykiss in the L. Sacramento or Lower Yuba "adapted" to "more favorable" in river conditions. I believe you are confusing the principles of fitness and selection with the term "adapted."

It's scientifically incorrect to state that O. mykiss somehow chooses its resident form over its anadramous form when confronted with "more favorable" conditions. What is true is that the selection pressure on the anadramous forms is decreasing their fitness in relation to the resident form. Thus, using your example of O. mykiss is the Lower Yuba, some of the progeny of O. mykiss leave to complete an anadramous life cycle, however when confronted with the construct of the degraded delta ecosystem/ocean conditions etc. are never heard from again. Because they do not return to spawn (or return in such low numbers) to pass down their fitness to the next generation, those that remain (the in river form) are those that we continue to see propagate.

So basically, it is a chicken or egg thing. Which came first: The riverine O. Mykiss or the anadromous O. Mykiss.
Right?

[Bob Laskodi]

WOWZERS, go to hell is now a professional and acceptable response on this forum. Thanks for reminding me why I no longer waste much of my valuable time on this useless forum any longer!

[Ralph]

Sorry for offending your sensibilities Bob. I kind of have a soft spot for what's left of our wild anadromous fishes, and because this is a family forum I held back what I really wanted to say. Even if we don't agree on all points all of the time, I respect your (and Tony's) comments and opinions because you have the guts and integrity to use your true identity.

[Alosa]

What a pile of BS. The peer reviewed scientific literature makes it clear that hatchery fish have a negative impact on wild stocks and ultimately undermine the longterm persistence of wild fish. As a fisheries biologist I can't say this any more plainly. Hatchery fish jeopardize the long term potential of recreational fishing. Done.

[Jake O]

About damns, in particular, engelbright. While there are a many a negative things, if it wasn't for this damn right now flows would be at 45 Cfs instead of 500. Something to ponder...... Engelbright acts as a safety net for flows in low water years

[Rich Morrison]

While I don't dispute for a second that what is going on in CA is a problem, we here in South Dakota have no ocean going fish. We are too far inland. We have no native trout at all. They were introduced in the 1800s. We now have thriving wild populations of Brown and Brook trout. They do stock Rainbows but these do not establish because most are caught and eaten and the Brown and Brook trout out compete them at every turn anyway. But tourism is a very important part of the economy here and the trout stocking program is seen as an integral part of that. I can't tell you how many times I've seen beaming faces on all sorts of folks, particularly kids, as they hold up that 14" or 16" stocker Rainbow. They don't care that it's not a wild fish. There is no doubt in my mind these fish are easier to catch and can be plentiful when stocked and thus no doubt do provide a recreational fishery. Alosa, as an obvious expert, do you think our fisheries here are also jeopardized by these hatchery fish? Or is this solely a CA issue given the native ocean going trout you have there?

[ycflyfisher]

"In other words, human intervention has made the habitat left on the lower Sac and Yuba much more fish friendly, damn near aquarium-like, than it ever was prior to human intervention."

May I suggest you are out of your mind. 150 years ago the fish were numbered in the hundreds of thousands if not millions, today a few thousand make a "good" run and up to 90% of those are genetically altered hatchery fish. The rivers used to be braided and densely wooded. Cellulose debris was abundant as was the distribution of substrate size ranging from grains of sand to giant boulders. Swamp-like sloughs, backwaters, and floodplains created vital habitat for smolt rearing. To suggest we have created salmonid shangri-la by building dams, turning the hydrograph on its head, straightening rivers, destroying flood plains, removing mate selection, and reducing genetic diversity by an order of magnitude sounds like something co-written by the Army Corp of engineers and PG&E as they try to sell an ignorant public on an ill advised boon doggle.

You need to get your head out of your books and open your eyes. It would be worth your while to visit some of the un dammed rivers in Alaska where only wild fish roam (by the tens of millions) to get some sort of sense of what a healthy eco system looks like. Your words are dangerous if even a single person is swayed by your ignorant ramblings.

Ralph,

Feel free to suggest I’m out of my mind, that I should get my head out of a book, should slam my head in a book, tell me to go to hell, or tell me to go rot in hell like last time I called your seemingly sacred opinions into question. Feel free to suggest whatever you feel is appropriate. It’s your opinion. I really couldn’t care less about your opinions, but I do find them to be entertaining.

That said, I think you should read this: “ Age, Growth and Life History of Steelhead Rainbow Trout of the Lower Yuba River, California” - Bill Mitchell - google it

From the abstract: “Based on general life history theory and the known life history plasticity of O. Mykiss, it is hypothesized that high, stable flows and cool temperatures resulting from summer and fall reservoir releases in the lower Yuba River support high growth, survival, and reproductive rates of steelhead rainbow trout that favor a resident life history strategy.”

Bill continues in the discussion section should you actually care about the truth. There’s also two more admin documents that I know of that discuss the Yuba/Sac steelhead subject (and another that's currently in development). As far as I’m concerned, you can spend your own time to dig those up yourself.

Bill Mitchell was the first fisheries professional I ever met in person BTW back when he had just secured the permit to trap the fish over DPD for this study and made a presentation at the local fly club.

Might want to compare that to what I said in post #8. Even with the correction provided by Tfisher, I’d say that my take is still pretty congruent with the peer reviewed science. Wouldn’t you agree? Even if you can’t agree, I hope you can see that your conclusions are the ones that are completely incorrect.

I’d suggest that you should start to occasionally stick your head in a book from time to time rather than acting like you know everything and blowing a gasket anytime someone calls your opinion into question. I think you’ll find that the peer reviewed science will skew your proverbial view from the clouds, in the world according to Ralph Cutter.


Tfisher (I definitely see the distinction and agree with what you're saying) and Alosa- Thank you for your input in this thread. I think it's sad that individuals like yourselves enter discussions like this one with trepidation. For what it's worth, I think there's a lot more of us paying attention, than you're probably assuming.

Bob- I wouldn’t sweat it. I’m not. It’s just Cutter showing his true colors.

[Alosa]

Alosa, as an obvious expert, do you think our fisheries here are also jeopardized by these hatchery fish? Or is this solely a CA issue given the native ocean going trout you have there?


Your talking about apples vs. oranges. In North Dakota, where the trout species you list are not native, there is no opportunity for hatchery strains to introgress with native populations (through genetic exchange; reproduction). The consequences of such introductions represent an entirely different suite of ecological consequences compared to the introgression of hatchery fish with native stocks of anadromous fishes in California and elsewhere. The scientific literature has demonstrated (repeatedly) that hatchery strains are a serious threat to the long term persistence of native fish populations.

Are we to risk their existence for the sake of anglers, or do we have a larger responsibility as stewards of the environment to ensure that wild fish (and the evolutionary processes that shape their local adaptations) persist and ensure their survival in the long run? I would argue the latter.

[Darian]

"....Are we to risk their existence for the sake of anglers, or do we have a larger responsibility as stewards of the environment to ensure that wild fish (and the evolutionary processes that shape their local adaptations) persist and ensure their survival in the long run? I would argue the latter."

Alosa,.... Your statement illustrates the dilemma facing CA DFW and all political entities in CA. Native vs Hatchery bred species. Hatcheries of all types were/are an attempt to mitigate for the loss of something necessary for their survival (habitat??) and required by existing law. Now, due to diversion of water from the Delta, we have the advent of "....conservation hatcheries...." for Delta Smelt and possibly other native Delta species. All in the name of mitigation.

In addition, there's the need to provide fish for license/permit holders for commercial and recreational uses (jobs/revenue). To make the point, in the recent past, a law was established that mandated funding of hatcheries on the south eastern side of the Sierra's. So, it doesn't look to me like hatcheries are going away anytime soon.

As a result of the current drought, both, federal and state legislators (politicians never wishing to waste a disaster) are currently making proposals to increase storage of water in the state in the form of new and raised dams, expanded reservoirs and diversions and increased management of water resources but not necessarily in favor of fish. Thus, will be the need for increased mitigation measures.

Given the current political atmosphere and the likelihood that one or more of these proposals will be passed and become law, when in your opinion do we cross the line into being unable to ensure the survival of all native species, not just Salmon, Steelhead, Trout. Are conservation hatcheries acceptable?? If so, what's the difference between conservation and mitigation hatcheries??? BTW, these questions are not meant as sarcasm.

Seems to me that this situation is already at a crisis level as some fisheries in this state are already crashing.

[Mike O]

About damns, in particular, engelbright. While there are a many a negative things, if it wasn't for this damn right now flows would be at 45 Cfs instead of 500. Something to ponder...... Engelbright acts as a safety net for flows in low water years

Except that low flow years are natural as well. The fish still made do. Your argument seems to say the Englebright makes things better for fishermen. I would posit that Englebright would serve to prove the other point, that fish would remain in rivers longer than they ordinarily would in low water years, becoming more "riverine" in nature...but then I am talking out my ass here, with no science to back it up.

[Randy Lee]

Tony,
The fire is starting to fade. Got another gallon of gas?

[cyama]

It is interesting to read through some studies performed by those jet boat guys and gals on the Yuba. There are some interesting reports on the Yuba Accord Website. They could even help you catch some fish. They show you when the Spring Run Chinook move past Daguerre. Something I learned and often thought was happening is that there is a good percentage of salmon on the Yuba from the Feather River Hatchery. Something I know is that there is an increasing amount of "steelhead" coming from the Feather...
http://www.yubaaccordrmt.com/Interim%20ME%20Report/ME%20Interim%20Report_Draft_April%202013.pdf

[TonyMuljat]

How about if the hatchery fish I caught on the Feather this past fall made me care about Salmonids? Was it worth it?

PS. This is the single most interesting and informative post I've seen on the forum.

[JasonB]

I think there's a huge difference in having an interest in catching fish, versus an interest in the fish themselves. I like both, but I'm completely on the side of having healthy self sustaining fish populations above my own interest in catching (or keeping) them. I don't really see the point of yearning for "the good ol' days" of fishing, if you're talking about catching a bunch of hatchery fish. What's sad is that there were good old days where enormous runs of salmon and steelhead made their way up these streams, all by themselves, high water and low, drought and flood, for centuries. Then we came along, decimated them with our carelessness and greed, and try to remedy the problem by attempting to re-create them in our own artificial manner. More carelessness and greed, and once again turns out that we didn't quite get it all right or fully understand the ramifications of what impact our actions would have.

Healthy, wild self sustaining runs are a completely different thing than fish put in a pond (or stream) for us to catch. I'm not completely anti-hatchery, as I think it's a complex issue if you take everything into account. I just don't see hatchery runs as being a reasonable substitute for wild fish. I also find it hard to fathom that any angler would not be able to understand the difference between the two.

[Alosa]

Given the current political atmosphere and the likelihood that one or more of these proposals will be passed and become law, when in your opinion do we cross the line into being unable to ensure the survival of all native species, not just Salmon, Steelhead, Trout. Are conservation hatcheries acceptable?? If so, what's the difference between conservation and mitigation hatcheries???

Seems to me that this situation is already at a crisis level as some fisheries in this state are already crashing.

These are tough questions, and really get to the heart of the matter. Each native fish species (from various salmon species to Delta smelt and long fin smelt) probably has it own threshold for what it can tolerate in terms of environmental stressors, so when we 'cross the line' where we can no long support the existence of ALL native species is an incredibly tough thing to answer. I certainly don't know the answer, but I would argue that things are currently in poor shape (any fool can see that), and mitigation/conservation hatcheries do not currently contribute to the restoration, but probably only add to the current set of problems.

Is this a 'crisis situation'? I would say so. Various populations of several salmon species (and other species; e.g. Delta smelt) that we care about are federal listed as threatened or endangered, and the situation does not seem to be improving. Increasing the height of existing dams will only lead to our further political denial of the true problem - that current water management practices in the state of California are UNSUSTAINABLE.

[Alosa]

As a follow up, here's a blog post by Bob Triggs from Washington State. The parallels between what he has observed and what we see taking place in California rivers is not a coincidence...political mismanagement of our natural resources is rampant.

http://olympicpeninsulaflyfishing.blogspot.com/2014/02/olympic-peninsula-wild-steelhead-why.html

[Darian]

Alosa,.... Thanks for the reply and info. After reading the blog, I can see that it's not much different up north than here. Not really sure where to go from here, tho. I'm still involved with reviewing/commenting on portions of the BDCP and that's depressing enough. :confused:

[Alosa]

I'm still involved with reviewing/commenting on portions of the BDCP and that's depressing enough. :confused:


Geez....I don't envy you!

[wineslob]

that current water management practices in the state of California are UNSUSTAINABLE.


So more tunnels to send more water to the LA basin is a bad thing?


:cool:

[Bob Loblaw]

I was listening to a thoroughly depressing show on NPR last week, they had a bunch of biologists talking about mass extinctions, and the general consensus was that in 50 years, 50% of the species currently in existence on earth will be extinct. When individual species become extinct it generally doesn't cause systemic damage. When you have multiple extinctions in the same ecosystems it causes a waterfall effect and it compounds.

The current loss rates of coral reefs alone will result in the loss of about 50% of the world's fish species.