Redwood Reader

86. Wild Coho Raised in Hatcheries
Source: River gets salmon born to be wild Coho bred for their DNA freed into a tributary of the Russian Glen Martin, SF Chronicle Enviromental writer Thursday, October 21, 2004
An idea expressed earlier in this blog has become a reality in the Russian River restoration process. Glen Martin reported today in the San Francisco Chronicle about a capture and breeding hatchery program of Russian River coho. The concept of capturing wild coho from various areas, which guarantees genetic diversity, raising them in nurseries for the summer until flows returned has been bested by an even more ambitious success wherein captured fish were grown to maturity and bred for the greatest possible genetic variation. Since many young are eaten, the population of the drainage was perhaps 10 to 20 mature spawners returning for breeding. The good news is that once again, waiting for improvements only saw conditions continue to deteriorate despite more restrictions and so a newer more flexible plan has gone into effect.
This is a particularly important issue for the hatcheries as their breeding programs suffered from a similar problem of not enough genetic diversity. I have been advocating some kind of rearing facility for salmonids rescued for streams and pools that dry up in the summer. I was once told at least the raccoons are being fed, and that it was illegal to remove endangered fish from the stream for any reason.
It is also good to see time has become an issue. Not by choice, of course, but nevertheless action is being taken in a quicker manner. Many aspects of restoration are over regulated, diminishing support and interest. I have been asking for help on my creek for nearly twenty years. We have surveyed it, gathered baseline sediment data, habitat typed it, inventoried sediment delivery sites, written a plan for hillside and road sediment delivery reduction, planted thousands of trees, gotten Save the Redwoods to buy the headwaters of the stream before it was logged, been assessed biologically and by Native Americans, and we still haven’t flipped a single stone or deepened a pool, and in fact were stopped three times this year from implementing because permits or studies hadn’t been completed. In each case the work was already done and in hand yet the task of keeping the permits straight once again cost us another year.
We have seen the benefits of reduced regulation for restoration working well in the Van Duzen last year when an on the spot decision allowed bulldozers to open the mouth of the Van Duzen so Eel River fish could run up the tributary as well through the sediment choked confluence. On our own property we always had good water and fish if we scooped sediment out of pool sites in the spring. We stopped that many years ago because it is illegal. But now the creek has no pools and dries up every year. We also have far fewer springs uphill. Regulations here prevented landowners from maintaining habitat. We also lost the community swimming holes and water sources traditionally used, and of course, we haven’t seen more than one big fish in any year. There must be some as we still have steelhead and occasionally coho fry in a stream noted for coho and Chinook in 1964 by DFG now one of the most degraded according to KRIS Mattole and California Watershed Assessment.
It is an interesting point that more money is available for projects in more developed regions where the threat is highest from human activity and it is almost impossible to get help for single landowners in remote areas. Out of sight out of mind combined with ”that guy is getting all the grease” allow valuable habitat to degrade and remain that way for decades. Here we note none of this money is going to habitat, it is for rearing facility operations.

“Coho are especially susceptible to habitat degradation, said Zeke Grader, the executive director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Associations, a lobby group that represents commercial fishing.
"The Russian is a poster child for everything that can go wrong with a river," said Grader. "Dams and water diversions, logging, overgrazing, gravel mining -- you name it." “

This is where glomalin links to coho-at the point of habitat degradation, although they have completely missed development as a problem. Housing has caused large areas to lose their ability to store rainfall in the root soil zone in addition to the totally lost paved and built lands. This creates an excess of surface water and land that is easily saturated and prone to sliding. Restoration has to include returning lands to absorption or the landscape will continue to dry a little worse each year and summer flows will continue to diminish. It is even hinted at when Peter LaCivita of the Army Corps of Engineers said we probably wouldn’t see volumes of fish returning to levels that existed “before the dams went in and the timber was cut.”
The quote “"It has been a long road. There isn't even (an official) recovery plan for these fish yet, so we're way ahead of the curve.” Humboldt residents also want Eel River water returned to the Eel and will be very upset if Eel River restoration becomes a threat to restored coho runs in the Russian River. A North Coast Coho Recovery Plan has been released by DFG but I am sure he means for the hatchery fish.
Anyway, the great part of this program is that they grew the coho to breeding age, and then bred them for the greatest genetic diversity possible, retaining the “wild” element along with the note about the fish swarming toward humans because of feeding imprinting. This was very evident back when we had our trout pond stocked.
IN the end they had increased 500 fish into 6100 ready to place in suitable habitat by using hatcheries differently from in the past. This is an exciting plan for landscape restorers because a source of fish may become available for areas returning to decent habitat where local populations have been extirpated or dramatically reduced. It is also a real positive use of genetics from degraded habitats that would normally not survive. It is well worth looking into for coho restoration organizations as well as hatcheries that currently are under utilized or funded.

‘"What happened at Clausen represents the difference between hatcheries as we have known them to date and hatcheries as we want to configure them in the future," said Kier, noting that hatcheries historically have reduced genetic diversity in salmon runs because relatively few fish are taken to produce an annual quota of fertilized eggs. ‘
Mill Creek was chosen as a release site because it supports some of the best fisheries habitat in the Russian River drainage. Erosion on the Mill Creek watershed is minimal. The riffles have the kind of rocky bottom salmon need for spawning, and a heavy canopy of oaks, firs and redwoods keeps water temperatures cool.’

It is obvious Humboldt has the need and the resources for this type of program. More and more habitat is recovering from past events. The knowledgeable people, the hatcheries and the habitat are all handy. This would be a great use of the Headwaters fund money as it could provide stock for the many miles of spawning habitat reopened by the culvert replacement program, for example, and would generate dollars far into the future as fishing returned to some degree.