In calculating endangered fish species, should hatchery populations be counted or just wild fish?

Wild

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by Older But Wiser

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I have lived all my life in the Pacific Northwest where so many fish-especially salmon are being threatened due to over fishing, the food for whales and seals, and to pollution. I have also volunteered in a Native American fish hatchery where they take the live fish that come up stream to spawn, take their eggs and the sperm from the males and raise new fish in the hatcheries to release when large enough so they go down stream (fresh water) and live in the estuary of fresh and salt water until they have adapted to the salt water enough to go out to sea and spend the next 4 to 5 years dodging fishermen, whales, and seals to return at the end of their life cycle to the same estuary they left the fresh water, swim up stream to the spot where they either hatched or were released and lay their own eggs or be caught and have that process done for them in a hatchery. The young fingerling fish when released have many predators before they ever reach the salt water so the ones that actually do make it past the estuary are already reduced in number. If it were not for hatcheries, the number would be greatly reduced that return to their natal stream each year. On the other side, there is lots of discussion about the hatchery fish not quite being the same as the wild fish who go through the same life cycle process but are probably a hardier fish as the individual fish goes. These fish face all the foes from the time their egg sack hatches and they have to make it with the egg sack attached until they eat that up and not get eaten in the process. There are other creatures in the air, land and water that eat these small guys so the ones that actually live long enough to make it to the estuary where they can hide in the eel grass is greatly reduced. The ones released from the hatchery are much bigger when released so have a greater chance of surviving. Most hatcheries have a means of identifying the fish as hatchery verses wild fish by either clipping the adipose fin and/or putting a chip in the fish that can be detected when the fish returns 5 years later. The clipped fin tells fishermen this is a hatchery fish and ok to take in season. The chip inside the fish helps the state of Washington to keep track of how many hatchery fish survive any given year and return to their natal stream. It is more difficult to tell this on the wild salmon since they return to their point of entrance but there is no way to tell how many survived from hatching in the wild to point of return in 5 years. We know the numbers of the latter are dwindling so it is very important to protect the wild ones and let the hatcheries, both state and tribal, do what they can to keep salmon available for fishermen while protecting the wild ones. I feel it is important, actually, to calculate both but keep the statistics separate-hatchery or wild salmon so fisherment can still catch salmon but protect the wild ones. The hatchery I volunteered at did get some wild ones but they also documented those in the information that was sent to the State of Washington.

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