Part, sure, always. But almost certainly less than everyone thinks. We have almost completely pristine watersheds that are very close to pre-contact conditions, that have almost no salmon or steelhead. The Queets, Hoh, Bogi, Sol Duc, Quinault, and even most of the Humptulips, there are no dams, very few homes, and minimal timber harvest.
In steelhead, it's fairly well documented that hatchery competition does harm native fry and smolts.
Any chance the outlets of those streams flow past salmon pens?
I don't believe so. They all discharge to the open pacific, and all the net pens are in protected waters of some sort.
That is exactly right. The spawning grounds and competition on the spawning grounds don’t matter much when nothing is coming back to benefit. Now it is a math problem that having fewer salmon in total means they receive a greater impact from everything else.
In steelhead, it's fairly well documented that hatchery competition does harm native fry and smolts.
Hatchery Selection and the Effects of Egg Size on Steelhead Growth and Development
An ambitious and hopeful effort to protect and restore the wild steelhead.www.wildsteelheaders.org
I have read a few things over the years that the impacts in other species are not as "bad
It’s true if there were enough fish returning to actually compete. I think the big issue there was experimenting with separate genetic strains within the same river to alter run timing. You can tell a hatchery steelhead immediately from a native and they pretty well suck in comparison. But in terms of math, having a lot of the hatchery fish keeps the sea lions and everything else from keeping native fish populations down and lets them get reestablished faster.In steelhead, it's fairly well documented that hatchery competition does harm native fry and smolts.
Hatchery Selection and the Effects of Egg Size on Steelhead Growth and Development
An ambitious and hopeful effort to protect and restore the wild steelhead.www.wildsteelheaders.org
I have read a few things over the years that the impacts in other species are not as "bad"
www.hcn.org
alaskabeacon.com
Yes! that graph is amazing. The other indicator that would be interesting would be to see the Pacific Ocean temperature norms on the graph. I think that total ocean carrying capacity might vary with temperature. Only Alaska would approve of creaming high value fisheries in favor of garbage fish like pinks and chums. Their main purpose in history was to fertilize streams. It’s like killing off crabs and halibut and salmon in bycatch for mass production of fish sticks. Ick.
What I also find irritating is their public relations campaign selling that cod fishing is sustainable and wild caught while whitewashing over the bycatch devastation when caught by factory trawlers. There are excellent ways to catch cod that are sustainable with greatly reduced bycatch like pot fishing and long lining. I’d much rather see a hundred plus family owned pot fishing boats selectively catching cod than a few monstrous Seattle factory ships. Don’t even get me started on Chinese factory ships!
