Hatchery Science: Toward Adaptive Management

The culture of salmon and steelhead in hatcheries, and their release into the open environment, for harvest and restoration (supplementation), is the primary method fishery manager's use to attempt to replace natural production lost to development of the Columbia River Basin. Hatchery rearing began in the 1870s, increased modestly until the end of WWII, and accelerated through the 1970s and 80s. Recent reviews identify 178 hatchery programs, involving 351 salmon and steelhead populations, releasing an average of 141 million salmon and steelhead smolts annually in the last decade. Authorization and funding of the production is through multiple sources:  Mitchell Act, Lower Snake Compensation Program, Fish and Wildlife Program, and various public utilities. At the time the Northwest Power Act was enacted in the early 1980s the ability of the hatchery program to achieve the anticipated adult production had not been evaluated. Most individual hatcheries were evaluated on whether they achieved numbers and pounds of smolts released. An early ISRP program review concluded that monitoring and evaluation of hatchery production was not consistent with Northwest Power and Conservation Council’s Fish and Wildlife Program guidelines and recommended a moratorium on expansion of hatchery production. This upset many basin constituents. Nonetheless, the United States Congress compelled evaluation of the hatchery program through the Program. Efforts to coordinate and evaluate hatchery operations began shortly after initiation of the Program, but are not fully in place even today. Evaluation and coordination of the hatchery program has included an Integrated Hatchery Operation Team (IHOT), a Regional Assessment of Supplementation (RASP), Council’s Artificial Production Review and Evaluation (APRE), and most recently a Hatchery Scientific Review Group (HSRG) evaluation. Each of these efforts has added to our understanding of the hatchery program, especially regarding the ability to produce adult fish. Insufficient understanding of the effects of the hatchery program on natural populations of salmon and steelhead remains a critical uncertainty for Columbia River Basin fisheries management.