"UNSPAWNED" A documentary about the mis/management of our central valley king salmon

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Originally Posted by WLREDBAND

Just to be clear here, I am in NO WAY advocating for a suspension in hatchery production on our dam impacted rivers. There is no way for that to happen, even if additional habitat and water management practices improve (which I do support). Hatchery production MUST continue on these rivers. I am also in NO WAY advocating for the return of surplus stock hatchery fish being returned to the river, as James wants. That is a scientifically undefensible position, due to scientifically documented density dependent mortality and limited spawning habitat issues. Simply put, returning ALL surplus hatchery fish to the river is a BAD idea for a large variety of reasons as briefly discussed above. Any given stretch of our altered rivers only has the ability to spawn and rear a certain limited number of fish, and we are likely at that maximum level right now. Dumping more surplus fish back will NOT increase the number of salmon as claimed by James, and that is bad biological science that I DO NOT support.

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Not saying you did. Just adding to the thinking pool of reality that we are facing in these rivers. And that you are right to say the rivers can only sustain so much in terms of spawning and habitat for rearing young fish. Fact still remains that over all if we look at the American alone.... This river lost 90%+ of its natural spawning grounds with the damn being put in place where it was.

As for habitat restoration I was pointing out the fact that adding more rock on top of the old river bed does nothing but help create a level river once high water does happen. We are acting like God thinking we know how to restore a river when we blocked it in the first place, and now stopping its natural flow that would clear itself out in a natural way, so far it sure does not seem to be working well. Nature knows best when left alone. But with dams in place its hard for nature to make it happen. And it seems most dont know how to make it work in my opinion and with the .gov making it harder to fix it does not help either.

Here is a great and easily understood description on density dependence and why it's a bad idea to let excessive numbers of fish spawn in limited habitat areas as NCGASA advocates for.
"Competition for limited resources and the concept of density dependence: Within a given watershed, there is a limited amount of food resources and habitats suitable to provide shelter from predators and water currents (which partially determine metabolic rates). If resources are abundant or there is little competition from other fish, all steelhead within a river or stream should be able to find feeding territories, ample food resources, and shelter; these fish will have high probabilities of survival in freshwater and at sea due to the size advantage gained from greater feeding opportunities. However, if resources and suitable habitats become limited and the number of rearing juveniles too great, there will be competition for the food and shelter that is available. As a result, all fish within the community will not be able to survive and reach critical size requirements for survival at sea. As the population of the community is curbed by competition for available resources and shelter, “carrying capacity” is reached in which the size of the fish population for a given area inhibits the population’s potential for growth (density dependence). While density dependence occurs mainly within freshwater environments, it has also been demonstrated to a lesser degree in the open ocean (Quinn 2005)."

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Originally Posted by Mark Kranhold

Heard from a very reliable resource that the hatchery is releasing the smolts way to early, another hatchery screwup! These fish should be released in April not February. The smolts aren’t even done with the smolting phase and are not programmed yet that the American River is their birthing place. So now these released smolts are either getting lost in the system, or getting diseased such as Ich (Ichthyophthirius multifiliis) and dying or turning into striper bait.

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To call it a hatchery screwup is totally incorrect. I can't speak directly for the American, but these decisions are likely due to recommendations by groups like the HSRG who want to limit the impacts of hatchery fish on wild stocks while still producing enough fish for all the stakeholders. You can't just dump millions of smolts in the river at the same time and not expect them to impact one another. I'd rather have fish released in February when turbidity is up and temperatures are down than release them in May or June. Diseases like ich are directly tied to high water temperatures so releasing in February would actually reduce disease risk. While decreased turbidity reduces predation. Increased straying is definitely a possibility, but those fish would still be entering the ocean fishery and some of those would still be returning to the hatchery. Again, without knowing the American specifically, my hunch is that survival for smolts released in February would be higher than them being released in May or June.

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Originally Posted by Rossflyguy

You’re not gonna have wild fish numbers pre dam when rivers have hundreds of miles of spawning ground blocked. Better hatchery practices are needed but if you’re gonna sit there and say these guides don’t know what they’re talking about I seriously doubt you’re on the water as much as they are.

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Any reasonable person realizes that we will never have wild fish numbers comparable to pre-dam and hatchery intervention is needed. Incorporating science like the HSRG recommends is attempting to better hatchery practices, that is the whole purpose of the group.

There is no arguing with the guides over numbers of the early 2000s. They were extremely high and it may simply have been an anomaly. If you look at the longer trend, the recent numbers in the Central Valley aren't out of the ordinary of what was observed in the past. Rather than talking about how we are failing, we should be trying to identify the conditions that led to the boom of the early 2000s. Salmon are a cyclical species so you often see these big boom/bust cycles. I'm not sure that the numbers of the early 2000s are sustainable. It's interesting that we have not seen a similar boom to the early 2000s since the 1950s which is how far escapement estimates go back. In fact, that big boom of 2003 may have been a factor in the near collapse of the fishery in 2007 due to the density dependent factors I spoke of earlier.

Managing Chinook is extremely difficult because they have a life history that spans a very large area in very different environments. In addition you have multiple year classes mixed at any given time which further compounds the difficulty.

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Originally Posted by JasonB

Interesting, but I have to say I found it hard to trust after the numerous comments about hatchery salmon being identical to wild salmon. I definitely think they hit on some important issues though, but the pro hatchery marketing kind of muddied the message in my opinion. There were a few claims that I’d love to hear more about, and from other sources: that wild and hatchery salmon had already interbred to the point of not being any different, and that all wild salmon in the Central Valley were eliminated by the drought. The point about salmon being a massive part of the entire ecosystem certainly has powerful merit, and no question that our water policies have been very hard on the salmon.

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Jason,

I think you're wise to ask questions about the "facts" in this video. I hope everyone else is doing the same.

The drought did not extirpate all the wild salmonids in the CV. Both Butte and Deer Creek for example, host wild spring runs that are not supported or supplemented by artificial propagation. What Jimmy Stone and his band of guides want you to believe is not true. The reduction in Spring fish produced at the Feather (i.e. the Feather becoming a conservation facility for springers that Stone also bashes) is a measure to reduce genetic risk for the aforementioned self-sustaining populations. The years of prolonged drought were hard on those fish, but the notion that they disappeared is not true.

The notion that wild fish and hatchery fish have the same genetics is also not true. Keep in mind the context Stone attempts to sell this statement in; he tries to apply this to rivers in WA and CA and he's applying this as a template to all rivers.

What would be a true statement is that in MOST CV rivers there is what I'd term significant homogenization of genetics and it crosses over to adjacent watersheds. This is due to the fact on severely truncated rivers of the CV streamborn fish have no temporal or spatial separation from hatchery fish that elect to spawn in basin. Unless you can somehow significantly reduce or totally stop hatchery fish from having spawning interactions with wild fish, hatchery fish are always going to have a strong influence on the genetics of streamborn fish. This is why there's an emphasis to replace American River steelhead (AR fish exhibits Eel River genetics) broodstock with another stock that more similar the CV O. Mykiss stocks. The Moke fish exhibited Eel genetics also at the time Jenn Neilsen did her genetics study, but approximately 10 years or so of continuous out of basin transfers from the Feather facility and Moke fish were deemed to be most genetically similar to Feather fish as of 2015-2016ish.

It would take multiple posts over several pages to even begin to address everything in this 38 minute video that raises questions, so I'm just going to throw out a few facts that shed light on all the things Stone is NOT telling you:

First, Stone's premise is that the root cause for the decline since 2002 can be attributed to two things: diversion and HSRG. They place blame on HSRG not once but twice before they even attempt to define what HSRG is. When they do "attempt" to define what HSRG is they make HRSG out to be a piscatorial hit squad that treats all hatchery fish like Adolf Hitler treated jewish people. This isn't even a half truth. HRSG is an abbreviation for Hatchery Scientific Review Group. HSRG is a congressionally appointed group of ecology professionals that were tasked with evaluating the impacts and risks hatchery fish have on wild fish while also considering that hatcheries play a legitimate and important role in meeting harvest and productions goals on impaired watersheds.

Stone has a grand total of TWO issues with HSRG: Reduction in hatchery production and retention of unspawned hatchery fish. He throws HSRG under the bus for this.

What he's not telling you is that all the other things HRSG has done. HRSG has made a myriad of changes first in WA, then on the Columbia and OR watersheds, and then for every mitigation facility in the state of CA except Warm Springs. These changes first involved evaluating everything every facility was doing and a myriad of reccommendations on what they should be doing. These changes involved everything from facility inadequacies to broodstock selection, handling and processing, to GMPs, to pathogen management, to developing protocols for developing run composition and others things that were MISSING from several of our facilities. Virtually every aspect of hatchery operation was evaluated. This was a hugely beneficial process. You can read every one of these reports here:

http://cahatcheryreview.com/

The big kicker of what Stone is NOT telling you: The HRSG got to CA last and did NOT even publish their reccommendations for California until June 2012 and the CFW DID NOT adopt these until either 2014 or 2015. I recall it happened in 2014, but Anna Kastner who is the Manager for the Feather Hatchery thinks it happened in 2015. The retention of hatchery fish and the reduction in fish production that Stone is assigning blame to and is stating caused the decline FROM 2002 DID NOT HAPPEN until the fall of 2014 or 2015 take your pick. Anna offered to verify and get back to me, but I didn't want to waste her time. When I was explaining to her why I wanted to know when this occurred she interrupted me and said "let me guess Willie, you just watched Unspawned."

Anna then spent a lot more of her time (I didn't ask) explaining how the state does NOT sell fish for profit. Instead of paying a local processor to render and process the fish before they're given to local charities, they went with a processor that picks up the fish for free and distributes said fish to various charities and tribes along the west coast. What the charities do with those donated fish is their own concern. No one is selling 300 lbs let alone 30000+ salmon out of 2 stand up coolers as Stone would have you and everyone else believe. IMO Unspawned is 38 minutes of stir-fried, artificially propigated horseshit.

Stone is hoping people pony up the cash prior asking questions or doing any fact checking. If I were a guide who is supporting this dude and his cooked up conclusions, I'd cut bait.

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Originally Posted by Fishtopher

There is no arguing with the guides over numbers of the early 2000s. They were extremely high and it may simply have been an anomaly. If you look at the longer trend, the recent numbers in the Central Valley aren't out of the ordinary of what was observed in the past. Rather than talking about how we are failing, we should be trying to identify the conditions that led to the boom of the early 2000s. Salmon are a cyclical species so you often see these big boom/bust cycles. I'm not sure that the numbers of the early 2000s are sustainable. It's interesting that we have not seen a similar boom to the early 2000s since the 1950s which is how far escapement estimates go back. In fact, that big boom of 2003 may have been a factor in the near collapse of the fishery in 2007 due to the density dependent factors I spoke of earlier.

Managing Chinook is extremely difficult because they have a life history that spans a very large area in very different environments. In addition you have multiple year classes mixed at any given time which further compounds the difficulty.

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I don't know why it happened. Everyone I asked about it while it was happening attributed to a long streak of favorable conditions in the salt, which led to insane marine survival. Unfortunately I'm fairly certain it wasn't anything we were doing inland that could be repeated. In the early 2000s, on the Feather they didn't have the second set of raceways so they simply dumped the Mykiss into the river to make room for the fall Chinooks in November. It was typical that they'd have tens of thousands of tiny Mykiss swimming back into the hatchery a few days after they started dumping them and also seeking refuge on the Yuba. It was a wild ride while it lasted though. Glad you decided to jump back into the discussion.

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Originally Posted by Bill Kiene semi-retired

CA wants to eliminate all non-native fish......Stripers, Shad, all Bass....etc.

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:D Haha good luck with that

Willie, thanks for your responses as I always enjoy reading comments from academically and professionally qualified people on difficult and complex fishery management issues. I wish more of those individuals would join in the discussion, but I understand their reasons for non-participation due to the toxic environment and personal insults that sometimes rears its ugly head here.
<<< If I were a guide who is supporting this dude and his cooked up conclusions, I'd cut bait.>>>
A short time ago, when James started getting active on internet/social media, I actually looked into joining and donating some money since they sounded like an organization I could support. However, after some research on topics such as C&R for wild steelhead, and hatchery production to the detriment of wild populations, I came to the conclusion of "no way Jose". After watching "Unspawned" I now know that I made the right decision to not join/donate. Their political goals simply do not support my personal beliefs as a fly angler.

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Originally Posted by WLREDBAND

Willie, thanks for your responses as I always enjoy reading comments from academically and professionally qualified people on difficult and complex fishery management issues. I wish more of those individuals would join in the discussion, but I understand their reasons for non-participation due to the toxic environment and personal insults that sometimes rears its ugly head here.
<<< If I were a guide who is supporting this dude and his cooked up conclusions, I'd cut bait.>>>
A short time ago, when James started getting active on internet/social media, I actually looked into joining and donating some money since they sounded like an organization I could support. However, after some research on topics such as C&R for wild steelhead, and hatchery production to the detriment of wild populations, I came to the conclusion of "no way Jose". After watching "Unspawned" I now know that I made the right decision to not join/donate. Their political goals simply do not support my personal beliefs as a fly angler.

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For someone who talks about toxic environment and insults you should look in the mirror with that holier than thou rhetoric. Wow.

I can say the same thing about you. WOW!
I guess we're now even. Your turn now.

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Originally Posted by Rossflyguy

For someone who talks about toxic environment and insults you should look in the mirror with that holier than thou rhetoric. Wow.

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Originally Posted by WLREDBAND

I can say the same thing about you. WOW!
I guess we're now even. Your turn now.

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Riiiiight.