Quote Originally Posted by WLREDBAND View Post
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.

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.