Thursday
Apr122012
Take Action! Oppose hatchery spring chinook acclimation facility on the Molalla River
Thursday, April 12, 2012 at 12:02AM 
The Native Fish Society has put out an action alert regarding a Coastal Conservation Alliance (CCA) application to build an acclimation facility for hatchery spring chinook on the Molalla River.
Needless to say this is a bad idea.
If constructed this facility would increase hatchery and harvest pressures on all fish species in the Molalla River, including populations of resident trout, ESA listed wild winter steelhead, and ESA-listed wild spring chinook.
Before making their recommendation to the ODFW Commissioners on this project, the R&E Board is considering comments from the public, that is where you come in.
PLEASE take action HERE via the Native Fish Society website.
Reader Comments (6)
Boo- hoo. bring on the fish. if you hate salmon move to the mid-west
If you love artificially created fish populations move to the mid-west. If you love healthy runs of wild fish then stay here and fight for them.
This acclimation facility does not represent an increase in smolt allocation, or of appreciable risk to wild fish. All it does is improve the chances that the fish the state releases return to the river to spawn. It is, however, unfortunate that the proposal lacks real recovery measures. And it's the lack of deeper recovery measures that will kill this proposal.
As a staunch advocate for wild fish, it has been interesting watching the bullshit spin this action alert has created. The truth is that the so-called CCA plan is just a hurried attempt by a couple of disgruntled stakeholders to move at least one aspect of the Molalla spring chinook recovery forward. It deserves to die, but the hype is not accurate.
im with ozzy on this one. adding more spring chinook to a river will not harm the native population, it might even help it if hatchery fish breed with the natives.
I live right on this river. I would not mind seeing more fish in this river but not at the expense of the native populations. There is a small winter steelhead run a decent springer run, as it is. The mo is actually a decent trout fishery and the trout are protected there. The MO is one of the only if not the only river on the mid williamette that is not damed and deserves carefull consideration in regards to its management.
im with ozzy on this one. adding more spring chinook to a river will not harm the native population, it might even help it if hatchery fish breed with the natives.
April 12, 2012 | fishmayne
Well then you need to take an intro level biology course. If the wild fish breed with the stocked fish, you will lose/contaminate the wild genepool. Which, by the way, developed over thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of years of natural selection/evolution.
Cheers