Reefnets

[rogerbum]

The vast majority of Alaskan caught fish these days are hatchery produced and are marketed as "wild caught" or "troll caught" to distinguish them from farmed fish. Technically, I think it would be more accurate to call these "ranched" fish as they live in the wild (after leaving the hatchery).

My personal belief is that a major driver of low fish numbers down here (WA and OR) is due to two factors that are often not discussed.

1) There's a ton of data that shows that many of Columbia River or Grays Harbor bound fish are caught before they ever get south of the southern tip of Vancouver island. As much as 75-80% of the fish never get past there.

2) There's a HUGE amount of hatchery fish (mostly pink and chum salmon) that are dumped onto the northern feeding grounds each year by Alaska. They are competing with the southern bound fish for the same food sources. If one looks carefully at salmon harvest over the past 40-50 years, the global harvest and the N. American harvest in tons is pretty stable overall. HOWEVER, much of the harvest has shifted N. to Alaska. I posit that this is simply a result of them outcompeting our hatcheries and NOTHING we do down here will affect that factor. In addition to the harvest data, I note that Orca populations are increasing in Alaska while decreasing down here.

So it appears to me that in addition to habitat issues (loss of stream and river passage, loss of near shore environment) in WA and OR, a huge factor is what happens to the N of us. WDFW has no control/input on that but I think we need to think about this more globally/regionally.

 

[johnr]

The vast majority of Alaskan caught fish these days are hatchery produced and are marketed as "wild caught" or "troll caught" to distinguish them from farmed fish. Technically, I think it would be more accurate to call these "ranched" fish as they live in the wild (after leaving the hatchery).

It is true that the Alaskan hatcheries pump out a lot of salmon (mostly pinks), but the vast majority of Alaskan fish caught these days are not hatchery salmon. My colleague, who is an Alaskan fisheries biologist, tells me that about 25% of the catch is from hatcheries. It varies from year to year of course. Still remarkable, but not a vast majority.

 

[tsturm]

In addition to the harvest data, I note that Orca populations are increasing in Alaska while decreasing down here.

Nah, The whales can't stand all the libtard B/S and are moving North :thup

 

[johnr]

In addition to the harvest data, I note that Orca populations are increasing in Alaska while decreasing down here.

Nah, The whales can't stand all the libtard B/S and are moving North :thup

I see what you did there...you combined the word "liberal" with the term "retarded" to form the word "libtard." HILARIOUS!!! In fact, you must be a comedic genius. Where do you come up with such great material!!!!!???? You must be, like, the smartest and funniest dude in all of Alaska!

Are we going to have to have another conversation about drinking while posting?

 

[Marco Flamingo]

Funny that logic dictates the opposite. Liberals want to move forward (progress). Conservatives want to move backwards (retard). Progressives vs. Retards. Time honored definitions.

 

[NORO LIM]

A smarter Alaskan would learn not to make fun of the bleeding heart liberal tax and spend crowd who subsidize that life of rugged individualism Alaskans are so proud of. One of these days, you may offend the people who support you enough that they will cut off the gravy train. :lol: :lol: Spoken as a person who has spent a lot of time in Alaska, greatly admires many of it's people, has close family living there, and thinks it's the most glorious, beautiful place on earth. But reality is reality.

https://www.moneygeek.com/living/states-most-reliant-federal-government/

https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/federal-aid-by-state

https://sipanews.fiu.edu/2021/03/24/2021s-most-least-federally-dependent-states/

 

[rogerbum]

The vast majority of Alaskan caught fish these days are hatchery produced and are marketed as "wild caught" or "troll caught" to distinguish them from farmed fish. Technically, I think it would be more accurate to call these "ranched" fish as they live in the wild (after leaving the hatchery).

It is true that the Alaskan hatcheries pump out a lot of salmon (mostly pinks), but the vast majority of Alaskan fish caught these days are not hatchery salmon. My colleague, who is an Alaskan fisheries biologist, tells me that about 25% of the catch is from hatcheries. It varies from year to year of course. Still remarkable, but not a vast majority.

Here is data from NPFAC (downloaded in 2019, I haven't updated to this year yet).
Alaska hatchery production ramped up from the late 70's to mid 80's.


Alaska commercial harvest ramped up over the same time period with a slight delay.


The change in the composition of the harvest switched more heavily to pinks over the same time frame. From that I conclude that hatchery production (some of it marked, some of it unmarked) is the dominant driver of the increase in harvest.

 

[johnr]

First Rogerbum, thank you from bringing us back to interesting discussions about salmon fisheries and away from the 4th-grade level "retard" insults. No disrepect to actual 4th-graders intended, most of whom are above that sort of thing anyway.

While your graphs clearly show a dramatic increase in hatchery production, there is no actual way to calculate from them that "The vast majority of Alaskan caught fish these days are hatchery produced." However, no one would blink an eye if, from the graphs, one would hypothesize that the increase in total catch since 1977 is due in part to hatchery fish.

 

[rogerbum]

First Rogerbum, thank you from bringing us back to interesting discussions about salmon fisheries and away from the 4th-grade level "retard" insults. No disrepect to actual 4th-graders intended, most of whom are above that sort of thing anyway.

While your graphs clearly show a dramatic increase in hatchery production, there is no actual way to calculate from them that "The vast majority of Alaskan caught fish these days are hatchery produced." However, no one would blink an eye if, from the graphs, one would hypothesize that the increase in total catch since 1977 is due in part to hatchery fish.

One of the hard things to estimate is that a fish that is caught is only counted as a hatchery fish if it's marked. There are two issues with this - 1) Not every fish is marked (although most Alaska fish are these days) and 2) Hatchery fish that are not caught go on to breed with other fish (wild and hatchery) and 2 years later, the returns of the offspring of hatchery fish are counted as "wild" - and they are in a way. However, if the hatchery were to go away, a few years later, those "wild fish" that result from hatchery breeding would also go away IF the driver is ocean survival (as opposed to carrying capacity of the stream). I would call these 2nd generation hatchery fish still hatchery fish but they will always be counted as wild under current protocols.

You might ask why does Alaska hatch so many pink salmon? The answer is that these are easier to rear in the hatcheries and they return in 2 years (as opposed to an average of 4 years for coho and chinook). So the net result is that the feeding grounds get 1.8B extra fish each and the fish they get are not as desirable as coho or chinook. Also, it's worth noting that pink salmon generally compete mostly with coho for similar food sources (especially brine shrimp) and that chum compete more with chinook as they get larger faster than pinks and move on to bait fish earlier (similar to chinook). We know in fact that pink salmon depress coho runs as there is natural oscillation in pink salmon numbers every 2 years and coho populations oscillate in the opposite direction on the same years.

So my contention is that part of the problem with coho and chinook salmon runs down south is that the hatcheries up north contribute to depressing our run size. They also the net size of the fish and the data also shows average fish size decreasing with the ramp up of the hatcheries. The combination of a decrease in run size, a decrease in fish size and a shift of harvest to the North are ALL consistent with the hypothesis that competition in the feeding grounds is contributing to the decline. Combine that with the majority of the southern bound fish being harvested before they pass the S. tip of Vancouver island, and I don't think that there's a ton we can do in WA and OR to restore fishing here. We could try to outcompete the Alaska hatcheries by dumping more of our own fish in (and that would help) but I think we need changes to the north of us to really have an impact and I rather doubt we have any negotiation leverage in the absence of Federal intervention.