For 30 years, wild fish advocates have been framing hatchery produced salmon as the biggest obstacle to wild salmon recovery, and throwing their money, lobbying muscle, and legal expertise behind a concerted move to remove all hatchery fish from the rivers of the Northwest.
However, sport anglers say that many of the promises and claims made by the conservation groups about the recovery of wild fish have not materialized, and now a coalition of sport anglers are pushing back.
Armed with several new scientific studies that cast doubt on the arguments used against hatchery fish in the past, they are organizing to get their message out.
The coalition centers around Hatchery Wild Coexist. The group is promoting a return to using responsible hatchery practices and putting fish back in our rivers.
According to the group’s website, Hatchery & Wild is a campaign to highlight the importance of fish hatcheries.
They are also drawing a connection between the cuts to hatchery programs, and existential threats to other species that depend on salmon, such as struggling southern resident Puget Sound orcas.
Hatchery Wild Coexist has been bolstered recently by partnering with the Addicted fishing group, a very popular cadre of media-savvy young guides and anglers centered in Southwest Washington.
They are also tapping into a growing number of disillusioned sport anglers who are tired of paying more for licenses even as managers reduce the numbers of retainable hatchery fish available.
The website offers a cache of recent studies that suggest that removing hatchery fish does not, by itself, result in an increase in wild fish.
Dave Schamp, the Oregon chairman of the Coastal Conservation Association (CCA), a pro-sport fishing advocacy, is one of the groups founders.
“The ultimate goal is to provide healthy and abundant fisheries,” said Schamp, “and we are committed to changing the minds of the decision makers that are currently being influenced by the native fish advocates.”
Jack Smith, president of the Oregon chapter of the CCA, said that Hatchery and Wild kicked into high gear at this year’s NW Sportsmen’s Show in Portland.
“We’ve actually been talking about it for a couple years,” said Smith. “We launched it at the sportsman’s show this February.”
That is where Cameron Black, a Vancouver-area fishing guide and member of Addicted Fishing, found out about the movement.
“We were going to start our own group,” said Black, “but we didn’t know how to go about that. Then we got to talking to these guys at the show, and they were definitely speaking our language.”
Black and the other members of Addicted Fishing realized that they could do better by helping promote what the Hatchery and Wild group was doing.
“We are good at getting the masses of people paying attention, and really good at content creation,” Black said. “We can help spread the word on the ground level.”
The Addicts have a serious following with as many as 200,000 followers, and Black said most of those anglers are behind this movement.
They have their work cut out for them. Wild fish advocates have been controlling the dialogue, using a number of scientific studies to push fisheries managers to cut back on hatchery plantings.
However, the science and conditions on the ground may be turning public opinion. Recent scientific studies, many available on the Hatchery and Wild website, have suggested that the hatchery fish influence may not be the controlling factor it was once thought to be.
Of 22 scientific studies concerned with this issue, Schamp said only eight support the claim that hatchery fish have a negative effect on wild fish. Four studies saw a positive effect, and the rest show no effect.
Schamp and Smith said native fish advocates have cherry-picked the studies to support their claims. Hatchery and Wild have all the studies cited published on their website, so readers can look at all the science.
The movement has been boosted by the recent troubles with starving orcas.
“If you look at the graph of fish stockings into Puget Sound,” said Black, “as it drops, those orcas dropped. The correlation is astounding.”
In fact, the state is being forced to increase hatchery plantings of Chinook salmon into Puget Sound and the Columbia River by 50 million smolts to aid the southern Puget Sound resident orcas.
Right now Hatchery and Wild are focused on getting their message out.
“Here we are, 20 to 30 years down the road, and we are not seeing an increase in the abundance of wild fish,” said Schamp.
“The wild fish advocates have been doing their thing for 20 to 30 years, and nobody has been telling the other side of the story,” Black said.
An example is a recent follow-up study concerning the Clackamas River, which used to produce as many hatchery summer steelhead as the Deschutes. Those stockings were dramatically reduced after an earlier study showed summer steelhead of hatchery origin were outcompeting the wild winter steelhead in the stream.
However, after over 20 years of reductions and the loss of a popular fishery, wild steelhead numbers have not rebounded.
Anglers and fishing interests, perhaps weary of the constant assault on hatchery plantings, and tired of fishing empty rivers, have responded well to the early part of the campaign.
“Reaction to this campaign has been overwhelming,” Schamp said. “We hoped for a positive response, but (the response) was positive on steroids.”
Black said: “People want to see salmon, they want to see jobs, no doubt they will be paying attention to this thing. And the more people that we can get behind it the better.”
For more information, and to donate: Hatchery and Wild Coexist, https://hatchery-wild-coexist.com/
Cameron Black, Gone Catchin’ Guide Service: 360) 921-5079
