Hatchery & wild co-exist?
Researchers studying salmon in the estuaries at the mouth of the Columbia River are cautioning that hatcheries meant to increase runs of huge Chinook might be doing the river’s wild fish more damage than excellent.
” General, the historic replacement of varied wild populations with less hatchery stocks of a narrow size variety and migration timing has actually heightened nearshore environment usage throughout the spring-summer migration peak and lowered life-history variation of Columbia River Chinook salmon,” they wrote in the draft of a peer-reviewed paper published online by the North American Journal of Fisheries Management last week. “Such modifications might weaken the fish preservation objectives of both hatchery mitigation and estuary remediation programs” on the Columbia.
LINK (through Craig Medred)
