Officials Celebrate Life-Saving Hatcheries

A century of growing fish has paid off for the state of Washington, not only in the fish coming out of hatcheries but in protecting against losses caused by environmental degradation, officials say.

For instance, thanks to restoration efforts, more than 2,000 adult fish make the annual White River spring chinook run, up from just 50 adults in 1977, said Bob Turner, director of the state Department of Fish and Wildlife.

“Hatcheries don’t just produce fish,” he said. “They serve a critical need to rebuild wild stocks … . Hatcheries are often used to mitigate the damages that we’ve already done to our habitats.”

Turner made his comments Friday as the department celebrated the centennial of its hatchery program with observances at the Minter Creek hatchery near Purdy and on the Kalama River in Cowlitz County.

The Kalama hatchery was the state’s first, begun in 1895 at a cost of about $5,000. The system now has about 90 facilities statewide.

More than 280 million fish are released each year from state, tribal and federal hatcheries, according to department statistics.

Not everyone, however, has such a rosy view of hatcheries.

Bob Doppelt, executive director of the Pacific Rivers Council, said his group thinks hatcheries provide only short-term benefits while hiding serious environmental problems.

Hatcheries don’t save native fish runs, for example, but produce inferior fish with poor survival ability, he argued. Money would be better spent restoring habitat to encourage the return of wild fish runs, Doppelt and others say.

For the most part, “hatcheries are just used to pump out fish for people to catch,” he said in a telephone interview from Eugene, Ore.

But others say hatcheries are an important resource in the 1990s, when many fish stocks are under intense pressure.

“If they (hatcheries) don’t replenish the stock, who will?” said Harold Wright, a past president of the Olympia Salmon Club.

In addition, state hatcheries and groups like the Olympia Salmon Club involve schoolchildren, teaching new generations about the environment and conservation, supporters say.

According to Department of Fish and Wildlife data, the 280 million hatchery fish released last year included 121 million chinook salmon, 60 million chum, 58 million coho, 9 million sockeye, 4 million pink salmon, 9 million Kokanee, 8 million steelhead and 11 million trout.

About 5 million hatchery fish are caught each year, while nearly 600,000 adult salmon return to hatcheries to spawn, the department says.

Fisheries meeting slated

Anglers and businessmen have organized an open meeting with Washington Fish and Wildlife Department officials to discuss management of warmwater fisheries in the Columbia Basin. The meeting, which is open to the public, is set for Thursday, 6:30 p.m. at Garden Heights Elementary School, 707 Nelson Road in Moses Lake.

“We’ll be getting the latest information about plans for a warmwater fish hatchery at Ringold as well as the new management plans for fisheries in East Side lakes,” said Ron Sawyer of Cascade Marina in Moses Lake. “We understand that there will be some warmwater fish stocking taking place this winter,” he said.

Boating reaching new highs

Recreational boating popularity is at an all-time high and boat sales are booming, according to the Boat Owners Association of the United States.

Americans purchased over 688,000 new recreational boats this year, an increase of about 10 percent over 1994. The increase marks the fourth consecutive year of growth for boat sales.

“More and more people are getting into recreational boating,” said David Pilvelait of BOAT/ U.S. “Boats are more affordable than they used to be and many areas are more accessible. We expect to see boating popularity to continue increasing.”

Personal watercraft sales continue to outpace the rest of the fleet, up 39,000 boats from last year.

, DataTimes MEMO: This sidebar appeared with the story: ENDANGERED FISH SHOULD BE LEFT ALONE Steelheaders on the Snake and Clearwater rivers will have several obstacles to wade through this fall. In addition to new regulations aimed at protecting the scarce B-run steelhead, another fish is in even worse shape: fall-run chinook. This run of Chinook is listed as an endangered species and is protected. Anglers need to be able to distinguish between the two closely related species. The easiest way to tell them apart is by checking the lower gumline. If the lower gumline is white or light-colored, it’s a steelhead. If the lower gum is black, it’s a chinook. Using this gumline test, identification can be made quickly without taking the fish out of the water. Another feature that helps differentiate a chinook from a steelhead is the spotting on the back and tail. The dark spots on the back of a chinook are blotchy and irregular in shape. On a steelhead, the spots are round and more uniform. The black spots on the upper part of the tail fin of a chinook are large in comparison to the spots on the tail of a steelhead. The problem with this method is by November, most fall chinook are so dark in color that the spots have become obscured. Fall chinook spawn in November in the lower mainstem Snake, Clearwater and Salmon rivers and are usually gone by the end of the year.