The effects of massive quantities of hatchery-raised salmon on native populations are only now becoming clear, and on the California Water Blog, Dr. Peter Moyle and Jakob Katz write about the insanity of California’s fragmented salmon & water management:
The past 60 years of Central Valley hatchery production to support fisheries has resulted in replacement of multiple natural populations with one hatchery population, thereby greatly increasing extinction risk.
The situation is similar to managing financial investments for long-term yields, where a well-diversified investment portfolio (i.e., multiple runs with multiple independent populations) will fluctuate less in response to volatile market conditions (i.e., environmental variation) than will one concentrated in just one or two stocks (i.e., just hatchery fish).
Today, the management portfolio of Central Valley salmon is overwhelmingly concentrated in hatchery production. This all-eggs-in-one-basket strategy is an underlying cause of the recent collapse of salmon numbers (Lindley et al. 2009). Recovery of self-sustaining runs of Central Valley salmon will be impossible if we do not stop interbreeding between hatchery and naturally spawning populations (Katz et al. 2012).
California’s hatchery system costs tens of millions to operate, yet it may be costing the state far more in terms of its effects on salmon populations.
Moyle and Katz call for a systemwide evaluation of hatchery programs, and suggest a pair of strategies which would lessen the impacts of hatchery fish on wild salmon populations:
Physical Segregation: Move hatcheries from upstream areas, where they are currently, to the bottom of the watersheds, in or close to the estuaries. This action would increase the smolt to adult survival rates by eliminating high mortality of hatchery fish in rivers and the Delta (from the more than 30 million hatchery smolts released, only 29,000 adults returned in 2009, that is less than 0.1%) while minimizing competition between wild and natural fish and limiting genetic dilution of wild gene pools.
Mark all hatchery fish with both adipose fin clips and internal tags so that all hatchery fish can be visually distinguished and management can effectively minimize interbreeding.
Genetic Segregation: Hatchery propagation meant to subsidize fisheries should use stocks for breeding that are as genetically divergent from native salmon as possible. Broodstock should be selected for life-history characters (especially migratory timing) incompatible with California hydrology. This action would minimize genetic dilution of wild gene pools because hybrid progeny will be unfit for local conditions and therefore unlikely to survive to produce progeny of their own.
With all that’s been learned recently about how unsuited most hatchery fish are to life in the wild (and their far lower reproductive rates), it’s clear that hatchery systems aren’t a mitigation for many salmon problems — they’re often a part of the problem itself.
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Peter Moyle is the Distinguished Professor Emeritus in the Department of Wildlife, Fish and Conservation Biology and Associate Director of the Center for Watershed Sciences, at UC Davis. He is author or co-author of more than 240 publications, including the definitive Inland Fishes of California (2002). He is co-author of the 2017 book, Floodplains: Processes and Management for Ecosystem Services. His research interests include conservation of aquatic species, habitats, and ecosystems, including salmon; ecology of fishes of the San Francisco Estuary; ecology of California stream fishes; impact of introduced aquatic organisms; and use of floodplains by fish.
Robert Lusardi is the California Trout/UC Davis Wild and Coldwater Fish Researcher focused on establishing the basis for long-term science specific to California Trout’s wild and coldwater fish initiatives. His work bridges the widening gap between academic science and applied conservation policy, ensuring that rapidly developing science informs conservation projects throughout California. Dr. Lusardi resides at the UC Davis Center for Watershed Sciences and works closely with Dr. Peter Moyle on numerous projects to help inform California Trout conservation policy. His recent research interests include Coho salmon on the Shasta River, the ecology of volcanic spring-fed rivers, inland trout conservation and management, and policy implications of trap and haul programs for anadromous fishes in California.
Patrick Samuel is the Conservation Program Coordinator for California Trout, a position he has held for almost two years, where he coordinates special research projects for California Trout, including the State of the Salmonids report. Prior to joining CalTrout, he worked with the Fisheries Leadership & Sustainability Forum, a non-profit that supports the eight federal regional fishery management councils around the country. Patrick got his start in fisheries as an undergraduate intern with NOAA Fisheries Protected Resources Division in Sacramento, and in his first field job as a crew member of the California Department of Fish & Wildlife’s Wild and Heritage Trout Program.