JEFF BARNARD
Associated press Writer
October 18, 2005
GRANTS PASS, Ore. (AP) — The new $7.8 million Oregon
Hatchery Research Center is opening on the site of an old hatchery outside
Waldport that became infamous in policy battles over protecting wild fish.
The center officially opens Friday in ceremonies that include an appearance from
Gov. Ted Kulongoski.
The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife hopes the center, to be operated by
Oregon State University faculty and students, will restore the state as a leader
in fisheries research as well as finding new ways to bolster dwindling salmon
runs.
“We see the Hatchery Research Center becoming an international destination for
leading fisheries scientists,” said Lindsey Ball, director of the Oregon
Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Unhappy over how the center was funded, conservationists said they are willing
to give it a chance, but worry it could lead to further problems for wild fish.
“I hope they do some good work and gain insights on how to use hatcheries
better to conserve wild fish,” said Kaitlin Lovell, salmon policy coordinator
for Trout Unlimited in Portland. “If we’re just talking tweaks and not
wholesale changes, I’m not sure we’ll see the day where hatcheries are no
longer harming wild fish.”
The center is built from the mothballed remains of the old Fall Creek Fish
Hatchery east of Waldport, which closed in 1998 for lack of funding and a change
in direction for state salmon policy, Ball said.
In 1998, an elk hunter videotaped technicians clubbing the last of the hatchery
coho returning to Fall Creek. As the tape circulated, outrage grew in some
circles over the idea of sacrificing hatchery fish to benefit wild runs. A
lawsuit was filed by property rights advocates, but later dropped. Another
lawsuit filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation led to a federal court ruling
lumping hatchery and wild fish together under the Endangered Species Act.
That lawsuit in turn led NOAA Fisheries to give hatcheries a greater role in
restoring threatened and endangered salmon runs.
Hatchery fish make up about 80 percent of Pacific salmon populations, but for
years, scientists have recognized that historic hatchery practices had hurt wild
salmon by moving fish to different watersheds, diluting gene pools, spreading
diseases, and producing fish that were less able to survive in the wild.
However, practices have been slow to change.
Ball said he had watched fisheries research dwindle for lack of funding for the
past 30 years, leaving the department without answers to critical questions.
Ball said he did not want to discuss specific areas of research that would be
conducted, but general areas would include salmon genetics, how fish decide to
pair up with each other to spawn, and what better ways there would be to feed
fish in captivity.
To do the research, the center has preserved the hatchery and its concrete
raceways, and built some natural-style streams where fish can be observed.
Lovell and Bill Bakke of the Native Fish Society both objected to the way the
center was financed out of lottery funds and federal grants they felt were
intended for habitat improvement projects, but Ball said it was all vetted by
the state attorney general’s office and legal advisers to the Legislature.
Lovell noted that wild coho in the Alsea River have rebounded significantly,
even through years when ocean conditions were poor, since the Fall Creek
Hatchery was shut down, and the state lost a golden opportunity to study what
happens when hatchery fish are eliminated from competition with wild fish.
Bakke said the Native Fish society supports the research effort, but was wary of
the new direction hatcheries are moving to put a greater emphasis on using wild
fish as broodstock. Research indicates that while hatchery fish from native
broodstock survive better in the wild than old hatchery strains, they still
aren’t as successful as fully wild fish. And the closer hatchery fish become
genetically to wild fish, easier it will be to give up on preserving wild runs
and their habitat, he said.
A high percentage of steelhead raised in hatcheries from native broodstock never
leave the rivers they are released in, competing with and even feeding on young
wild steelhead that migrate to the ocean, Bakke said.
“This needs to be tested and evaluated,” he said.
Source: http://www.newsreview.info/article/20051018/NEWS/51018010