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<p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-size:13.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif"'>Warning
on trout hatcheries could force changes<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=byline1><span style='font-size:8.0pt'><a
href="mailto:pfimrite@sfchronicle.com"><span style='color:#015660;text-decoration:
none'>Peter Fimrite, Chronicle Staff Writer</span></a><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=date1><span style='font-size:8.0pt'>Sunday, July 5, 2009<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.5pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Hatchery-raised steelhead trout pass on
genetic defects that hamper survival of even their wild-born offspring,
according to a study that biologists say could lead to a radical shift in the
way salmon breeding programs operate on the West Coast.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Arial","sans-serif";color:#222222;
text-transform:uppercase'>Images<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/MNCU188EDD.DTL&o=0"><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#015660;
text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="Picture_x0020_22"
src="cid:image001.gif@01C9FD4B.C89B5F50"
alt="Ben White, the head biologist at Warm Springs Hatchery in..."></span></a><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/MNCU188EDD.DTL&o=1"><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#015660;
text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="Picture_x0020_23"
src="cid:image002.gif@01C9FD4B.C89B5F50"
alt="Hatchery-raised steelhead trout can pass on genetic defec..."></span></a><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/MNCU188EDD.DTL&o=2"><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";color:#015660;
text-decoration:none'><img border=0 width=64 height=64 id="Picture_x0020_24"
src="cid:image003.gif@01C9FD4B.C89B5F50"
alt="Head biologist Ben White checks on young trout at Warm Sp..."></span></a><span
style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/c/a/2009/07/05/MNCU188EDD.DTL&o="><span
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text-decoration:none'><span style='font-size:7.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";
color:#015660'><img border=0 width=7 height=7 id="Picture_x0020_25"
src="cid:image004.gif@01C9FD4B.C89B5F50"
alt="http://imgs.sfgate.com/graphics/utils/plus-green.gif"></span></span><span
style='font-size:7.5pt;color:#015660;text-decoration:none'>View More Images</span></a>
</span><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<ul type=disc>
<li class=MsoNormal style='mso-margin-top-alt:auto;mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto;
mso-list:l0 level1 lfo1;display:none'><span style='font-size:9.5pt;
font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif";display:none'><a
href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/03/BANF18IID5.DTL"><span
style='color:#015660;text-decoration:none'>Fireworks set off blaze that
destroys home</span></a> 07.02.09<o:p></o:p></span></li>
</ul>
<p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:9.5pt;font-family:"Verdana","sans-serif"'><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The recent Oregon State University study found
that even hatchery fish whose parents were wild develop and pass on genetic
defects severe enough to hamper the reproductive ability of their offspring.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The implication, scientists said, is that
hatchery programs for all salmonid species, including steelhead, chinook and
coho, could actually be harming the natural balance and contributing to the
demise of the once plentiful salmon runs in California, Oregon and Washington. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"Past studies have always suggested that
hatchery-produced fish are of lesser quality, but this study shows it is more
disturbing than we thought," said Tina Swanson, a fishery scientist and
the executive director of the Bay Institute. "This is the clearest indication
that hatchery-produced fish can actually harm wild stocks. It underscores my
suspicion that hatcheries are not the solution."<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The issue is critically important to
biologists, fishermen and water managers in California, where the commercial
salmon fishing season was shut down for a second straight year after another
paltry return of spawning fall run chinook. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The Sacramento-San Joaquin River fall run is
historically the largest run of salmon on the West Coast and the vast majority
of those fish are mass produced in hatcheries. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Scientists point to a host of environmental
and habitat problems, including a warming ocean, for the decline. A biological
review this month by the National Marine Fisheries Service placed much of the
blame on diversions by the state and federal water systems. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Hatcheries, though, have always been seen as
part of the solution. The Oregon study released in June shows that they may
instead be part of the problem. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Michael Blouin, a professor of zoology at
Oregon State and the lead author of the study, said the genetic fingerprints of
three generations of wild and hatchery-raised fish from Oregon's Hood River, in
the Columbia River system, were studied for how well they reproduced in the
wild. The analysis involved genetic data on thousands of fish dating back to
1991. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>On average, he said, the offspring of two
hatchery-reared steelhead were only 37 percent as reproductively fit as fish
whose parents were both wild. The fish with two hatchery parents were 87
percent as fit as the offspring of one wild parent and one hatchery parent</b><span
style='font-size:9.5pt'>.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<h3 style='line-height:21.0pt'>Meticulous standards<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>These differences were detectable even after a
full generation of natural selection in the wild, Blouin said. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"What's surprising is how poorly the
first generation of fish do," Blouin said. "There's a rapid decline
in the fitness of those fish when they go out and spawn in the wild."<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The results are important because until now
most biologists thought genetic problems developed over several generations and
only in hatcheries that were lax in their efforts to ensure genetic
variability.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>But the Hood River hatchery is used for
conservation purposes, meaning the fish are meticulously bred, are fed in a way
that is as natural as possible and are regularly interbred with wild fish in an
attempt to help with genetic diversity. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>A previous Oregon State study published in the
journal Science in 2007 showed that hatchery fish that migrate to the ocean and
return to spawn leave far fewer offspring than their wild relatives. This
latest study, Blouin said, strongly suggests that hatchery salmonids are also
reducing the fitness of wild populations when they interbreed. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<h3 style='line-height:21.0pt'>40 million salmon per year<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The potential ramifications are frightening
when one considers that 40 million hatchery-raised salmon are released into
California river systems every year. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
releases 12 million chinook smolt and the California Department of Fish and
Game releases 20 million smolt annually into the Sacramento-San Joaquin River
system. The rest are dumped into the Klamath River.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>Of the four big hatcheries run by the state
and two by the federal government, only the federally run Livingston Stone
National Fish Hatchery at the base of Shasta Dam and the state's Warm Springs
Hatchery for coho in the Russian River Basin have the same quality standards as
the Hood River hatchery.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>In fact, the vast majority of the California
chinook are farmed for the fishing industry as mitigation for construction of dams
and other diversions by the state and federal water projects. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"The purpose is not to restore wild fall
run chinook to the Sacramento," said Bob Clarke, the acting regional
fisheries manager for the Fish and Wildlife Service. "It is to help
support a commercial and recreational fishery."<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The Oregon study, which shows that even
cautious breeding of fish can be harmful, means that the mass production of
salmon in California hatcheries could be much more damaging than previously
thought, according to scientists.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"If steelhead are at all similar to
chinook then this is very, very, very worrisome," said Swanson, adding
that nobody even really knows if any wild fall run chinook still exist.
"We're doing a bunch of things that we already know are wrong and this
study has identified another flawed practice."<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The study acknowledges that steelhead trout
may react to captive breeding differently than chinook, but it nevertheless
warns fishery managers not to rely on hatcheries for the recovery of salmonids.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<h3 style='line-height:21.0pt'>A growing movement<o:p></o:p></h3>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><span style='font-size:9.5pt'>"</span><b>There
is a lot circumstantial evidence that what we have shown is also happening to
other species," Blouin said. "What it means is that if you are trying
to help a wild population recover then putting hatchery fish in there is
probably not a good idea." <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The study gives credence to a growing movement
to change the way hatcheries operate. One proposal is to mandate removal of the
adipose fins on all hatchery fish for identification purposes. Another is to
make hatchery conditions more riverlike and feed young fish underwater instead
of using the unnatural method of throwing pellets on the top of the water.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"Even hatchery reform is not a solution,
which is why no matter what you do in the short term, the goal must be
self-sustaining populations of wild fish," said Steve Mashuda, an
environmental attorney for Earth Justice. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>The positive thing about the study, Blouin
said, is that it shows how quickly fish adapt. If steelhead can change their
genetics and behavior to out compete others in the unnatural environment of a
hatchery, he said, they can certainly do it in the wild. <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>"If you fix the habitat and leave it
alone," he said, "natural selection will very quickly create a
locally adapted population." <o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p class=dtlcomment style='line-height:21.0pt'><b>E-mail Peter Fimrite at <a
href="mailto:pfimrite@sfchronicle.com">pfimrite@sfchronicle.com</a>.<o:p></o:p></b></p>
<p style='line-height:21.0pt' id=pageno><b>This article appeared on page </b><strong><span
style='font-weight:normal'>A - 1</span></strong><b> of the
San Francisco Chronicle<o:p></o:p></b></p>
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