The administration's odd salmon count

A federal district judge blew the whistle on the Bush administration's attempts to inflate the count of West Coast salmon runs with hatchery fish. Fiddling with the numbers does nothing to nurture and protect healthy wild salmon.

District Judge John Coughenour rules that the National Marine Fisheries Service was in error when it downplayed the listing of Columbia River steelhead as threatened instead of endangered. They fudged the listing with hatchery-padded numbers. Coughenour was puzzled: "To be sure, the inclusion of hatchery fish alongside natural fish ... strikes the Court as odd."

For good reason. Heavy-handed reliance on hatcheries has failed throughout history. Easy assumptions about the production of raw numbers overlooked issues of the carrying capacity of the ocean or competition with wild salmon.

More young fish did not produce more adults.

David R. Montgomery, a University of Washington professor and author of "King of Fish: The Thousand-Year Run of Salmon," wrote in The Times in 2004:

"Perhaps the most dangerous aspect of the historic reliance on hatchery production ... is that the system created the illusion that hatcheries can make up for the environmental degradation and overfishing that led to declining salmon runs in the first place."

Also in 2004, a four-year Hatchery Reform Project found a subtle role for hatcheries in recovering wild salmon and steelhead populations, but the limitations and pitfalls had to be acknowledged. Without the protection and restoration of salmon habitat, none of the fish would have a home to return to.

The judge's incredulity was right on the mark.