Editorial
A sound blueprint for hatchery reform

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Four years ago, that eyebrow-raising proposition inspired a congressionally chartered review of hatchery operations in those regions.

The results of a sweeping scientific inquiry, the Hatchery Reform Project, were released last week, and are summarized in three key findings:

• A hatchery should not be viewed as a substitute for habitat, but as an extension of it.

• The success of a hatchery should be measured by the quality of adult returns, not the number of fish released.

• Hatchery operations must be calibrated to what the habitat can support, and the impact on wild populations in a watershed. All watersheds are different.

Building on these guidelines, a consortium of scientists, policy experts, public officials and tribal representatives produced 18 systemwide recommendations and more than a thousand specific recommendations for improvements at 100 state and tribal hatcheries.

Public attitudes about fish hatcheries have evolved over generations. Initially, they were regarded as mechanistic marvels that would compensate for fish-killing dams and encroachment by human activities.

Eventually, hatcheries drew criticism as crude factories whose success was measured by the fish available to harvest. In recent years, hatchery releases were seen as suffocating competition for wild stocks.

One breakthrough insight is that hatchery decisions and operations can be tailored to specific local conditions and still be part of broader, systemic hatchery reforms. That sense came through in preliminary findings two years ago, and carries forward into the latest announcement.

Consistent too is the uniformity of enthusiasm for the hatchery-reform process among state, federal and tribal fish managers, and sports fishing and conservation groups.

Past attempts to reform hatcheries foundered on the credibility of the science behind the proposed changes. Through four years — and looking ahead to implementation — confidence in the scientists has been sustained from hatchery operators to the halls of Congress and the governor's office.

Dependency on hatcheries cannot be ignored or denied, as the report makes clear. Eighty percent of Washington's resident trout, over 90 percent of the inland salmon caught, 70 percent of the salmon catch in Puget Sound, 75 percent of all coho and Chinook harvested, and 96 percent of all steelhead landed statewide are from hatcheries.

They are part of recovering, conserving and sustaining fish runs. The role has been both confirmed and rethought by scientists and policymakers.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company