Steelhead recovering through Hood Canal program

Scientists have spent two years rearing wild steelhead in hopes of restoring threatened Puget Sound populations.

Steelhead hatcheries typically feed their steelhead a heavy diet to boost their size for release after their first year. But the slowly fed 2 year olds seem to survive at a much higher rate. In fact, holding fish for an extra year appears to be so successful that it may become the norm -- particularly for a new breed of hatcheries aimed at increasing natural populations rather than just producing fish for sport and tribal fisheries.

LINK (Via: Oregon Live)

Comments

[Carla]

quite funny... where who are these guys? I love the Rastafarian trout with the flowing dreds

[N]

"...the numbers of Native Steelhead smolts
and adults declined whenever there was supplementation
with hatchery fish, and the declines became
more severe as the numbers of stocked fish
increased. When native and hatchery adults interbred, the
downward trend in native smolt and adult abundance
was accelerated and the native fish were
often a minority. As the number of
hatchery fish stocked, the mating overlap, and the
fitness of hatchery fry increased, the percentage
of native fish traceable to hatchery lineage increased,
AND THE DANGER OF NATIVE FISH BECOMING EXTINCT INCREASED."

Text taken from a document in the OSU research database "Modeling the Response of Native Steelhead to Hatchery
Supplementation Programs"