Saturday, March 22, 2003
Northwest ©2002 The Olympian

Groups sue to bar release of hatchery fish
Puget Sound's wild stocks are being eaten by hatchery salmon, litigants say

N.S. NOKKENTVED THE OLYMPIAN Citing research that shows juvenile coho salmon and steelhead from hatcheries eat young wild chinook salmon, environmentalists are trying to block the release of some fish from state hatcheries in Puget Sound.

Washington Trout of Duvall and the Native Fish Society of Portland filed a lawsuit this week in U.S. District Court against the state Department of Fish and Wildlife to stop the release of hatchery-produced coho salmon and steelhead.

Wild chinook salmon were listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1999.

Hatchery operations violate the act, the groups say.

"These hatchery programs helped drive Puget Sound chinook onto the Endangered Species List, and they've been violating the ESA for over two years," Kurt Beardslee, Washington Trout executive director, said in a prepared statement.

Wild salmon feast

The environmental groups cited a California study that reported 532,000 hatchery salmon consumed 7.5 million wild chinook fingerlings in the Feather River -- or an average of 14 wild salmon each.

The lawsuit targets 30 Fish and Wildlife steelhead and coho hatchery programs in Puget Sound. The hatcheries produce salmon and steelhead that support commercial and recreational fisheries.

About 70 percent of the fish caught and landed in Puget Sound are raised in hatcheries.

Anglers say the lawsuit could shut down the state's hatcheries and eliminate recreational fishing.

Evaluations under way

The independent scientists of the Hatchery Scientific Review Group also are in the process of evaluating state, tribal and federal hatchery operations in Washington, said Clint Muns of Shelton, a member of the South Sound chapter and state president of Puget Sound Anglers.

"We should let these people do what they set out to do," Muns said.

The environmentalists, however, also asked the court to bar Fish and Wildlife from releasing more than 5 million hatchery fish into Puget Sound rivers while the case is pending.

But at NOAA Fisheries -- formerly the National Marine Fisheries Service -- officials already are evaluating management plans for state and tribal hatcheries, including plans for the coho and steelhead hatcheries submitted earlier this week.

The evaluations will include the hatcheries' effect on listed chinook, said Tim Tynan, a fish biologist with NOAA Fisheries, the federal agency in charge of salmon recovery.

Washington Trout, however, noted that those plans were due in January 2001.

State officials would make changes in hatchery operations as required by those evaluations, including closing hatcheries, or changing the numbers, size or timing of released fish, said Lew Atkins, assistant director of Fish and Wildlife's fish program.

"We're not doing anything that we think is harmful," he said. "Let's let the process do what it was intended to do."

N.S. Nokkentved covers the outdoors for The Olympian. He can be reached at 360-754-5445 and at nnokkent@olympia.gannett.com.

©2003 The Olympian