Pacific NW wild salmon endangered

[richards1052]

The New York TImes writes today about an anonymous federal bureaucrat who has proposed new federal guidelines which would endanger wild NW salmon & encourage increased timber harvesting by counting factory-raised salmon in the count.

I've written a post at my blog on this subject, Washington State Says "Hands Off Our Salmon," Mr. Bush!. Hope you'll take a look.

[ExtraMSG]

The New York TImes writes today about an anonymous federal bureaucrat who has proposed new federal guidelines which would endanger wild NW salmon & encourage increased timber harvesting by counting factory-raised salmon in the count.

I've written a post at my blog on this subject, Washington State Says "Hands Off Our Salmon," Mr. Bush!. Hope you'll take a look.

Too bad you got the law all mangled. It's not farm-raised fish, but rather hatchery-raised fish that would be counted. That's a huge difference. Hatchery fish are released into the wild, make their way to the ocean, and then return up the rivers, often after several years at sea. Farm-raised fish hang out in pens their whole life getting fed pellets.

I imagine all or most of the Copper River salmon you love is actually hatchery fish, not true wild. In stores and restaurants there is never any difference noted between hatchery and true wild fish.

Any anglers, especially fly-fishers, out there like myself who've caught the two will probably claim to know the difference, besides just the inability to keep true wild fish usually. But I don't think most people, even seasoned salmon munchers, can tell the difference between the two.

The issue is still open for debate as to whether hatchery fish should be counted, but it's for entirely different reasons from the ones you state. Your entire argument goes poof and the analogies fail miserably once the facts are corrected.

[uberleet]

The issue is still open for debate as to whether hatchery fish should be counted, but it's for entirely different reasons from the ones you state. Your entire argument goes poof and the analogies fail miserably once the facts are corrected.

Huh? richards1052 confused hatchery and farm-raised salmon (like a lot of people), but the Times article backs him. How does his argument go "poof," exactly?

[ExtraMSG]

Well, the Times article uses a similar analogy, the zoo one, but I don't know that that backs him up. It's just the same faulty logic in his post that I missed the first time I read the Times's article.

The proposal is much closer to counting condors being hatched in an incubator and released into the wild or orphaned animals that get nursed until they can be released into the wild. The wild elk fed during the winters in Wyoming are closer to animals living in a zoo than hatchery fish that are released when they're still fingerlings that will only reproduce if they can survive years in the same conditions that true wild fish will.

[DRColby]

Truth is that without hatcheries the state would be practically with Steelhead. Many of the state's once wild-only run rivers have been restored (or is it just restocked?) with hatchery runs.

More disturbing to me was last week's articles in the Seattle Times and PI on the condition of Hoods Canal and the pollution from chum salmon carcases that have been roe- stripped for the Japanese market then thrown back into the stream. In addition to adding to the pollution and warming of the Canal, the PCBs start skyrocketing in these dead zone areas. The chum is a native (and a pretty decent sport fish) foregotten in the furor over the wild - hatchery-pen raised King and Coho debates.

dave

[ExtraMSG]

DRColby, do you have a link for that article? Wouldn't them being stripped of their roe and thrown back in the water be similar to what would happen in the wild, where, after they mate they die? Or is the bigger problem where this commercial process occurs. ie, in the wild, the fish make it to the end of thousands of streams and then mate, distributing this process to some degree.

[DRColby]

ExtraMSG,

Reference as follows:

http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/...0507&query=Chum

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/aploca...earchpagefrom=1

The AP article points out some of the differences.

dave