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The State of Alaska subsidizes numbers of hatcheries in Southeast Alaska providing economic benefits to many fishers in that region. That’s the good side of it. One bad side is the costs to the taxpayers to date of well over 100 million dollars. Another is what it did to persons up and down the Yukon River who engaged in a subsistence / commercial fishery dependent on amounts of money made during the commercial chum season that existed there. Initially it collapsed the Yukon chum flesh market as the fishers could not compete with a fishery that did not have to deal with the normal costs of setting themselves up and paying for their buildings, etc. Then years later when the chum flesh market in general went under and the hatcheries could not make it on flesh sales they asked for and received yearly wavers from the State of Alaska to the existing wanton waste laws. They then threw away millions of chum salmon a year, kept the eggs for sale and stripped away another significant portion of the middle and upper Yukon fishers commercial fishery by flooding the same markets Yukon chum eggs went to for many years with their subsidized product.
Yukon fishers are not complaining about fair competition in a free market and this is not that in any way shape or form. Recently the State put a proposal before the State Board of Fisheries to allow the hatcheries to throw away the fish (millions) and keep only the eggs without needing the yearly wavers (it passed). Meanwhile Yukon fishers can and have been prosecuted for wasting even small amounts of fish over the years (which is as it should be).
Many of the problems we are experiencing today in our fisheries are said to have ocean based causes with competition for food being one distinct possibility. The billions of small fish released from these hatcheries are not a natural part of the ocean ecosystem and could be part of the problem of decreasing Chinook size. This is an issue, driven over the years by money and politics, that Yukon fishers seems to be unable to get any help on.
One of the many Hatchery Resolutions by Alaskan Organizations over the years
Resolution: 2006-02, Yukon River Drainage Fisheries Association
Subject: Hatcheries and Roe Stripping
WHEREAS YRDFA represents subsistence, commercial and sport fishers from over 40 communities within the U.S. portion of the Yukon River drainage who depend on wild salmon for subsistence and income; and
WHEREAS Alaska’s hatcheries release over 1.6 billion salmon every year; and
WHEREAS hatchery fish compete with Yukon River salmon for nutrition in the open ocean; and
WHEREAS Alaska law forbids the “wanton waste” of salmon at AS § 16.05.831 and roe stripping violates this law; and
WHEREAS roe stripping sets an undesirable precedent here in Alaska and depresses the price of roe for Yukon River fishers; and
WHEREAS hatchery and ocean-ranched fish are labeled as “wild salmon” in the global marketplace;
BE IT RESOLVED that YRDFA opposes the allowing of roe stripping in hatcheries and supports setting specific limits on hatchery production and decreasing funding and loans to private non-profit hatcheries. YRDFA opposes the use of the “wild salmon” label for hatchery and ocean-ranched fish.
COPIES of this resolution will be sent to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, the Alaska Board of Fisheries, and State of Alaska Legislators, Alaska Governor’s Office, Senator Ted Stevens.
APPROVED unanimously this 16th day of February 2006 by the Board members and Delegates of YRDFA assembled at their Sixteenth Annual Meeting held in Ruby, Alaska.
Below is a 2010 article that gives an idea of the scale of the problem beyond the State of Alaska’s contribution
Fears raised that N. pacific cannot support the numbers of hatchery salmon being released
SEAFOOD.COM NEWS [The News Tribune] November 30, 2010
WASHINGTON - With the number of salmon in the North Pacific having doubled over the past 50 years, scientists are increasingly concerned there might not be enough food to support them, and changing ocean conditions could make it even worse.
On the surface, the mounting scientific evidence would seem to contradict conventional wisdom that salmon are a disappearing species. But as with everything salmon, the situation is complicated.
Even as more than $13 billion has been spent since 1978 trying to restore endangered wild salmon populations in the Northwest, salmon hatcheries in the U.S., Russia, Japan and Canada have expanded rapidly.
In 1970, 500 million hatchery-raised salmon were released. In 2008, more than 5 billion hatchery fish headed out to sea. As with wild salmon, only a small percentage of the hatchery fish actually survive to spawn.
Once in the ocean, the hatchery fish are competing for the same food as the wild salmon. While the North Pacific and the Bering Sea might be vast, salmon often congregate in the same feeding grounds.
'Many hatcheries were built on the premise that the ocean had an unlimited capacity to support all salmon,' said Gregory Ruggerone, a fisheries scientist who works for Natural Resources Consultants in Seattle.
That might not be true. With nearly 650 million adult Pacific salmon swimming in the ocean at any given time, the competition for food is increasing, and the already shrinking wild stocks could be crowded out.
'It could lead to a reduction in wild stocks,' said Randall Peterman, a professor in the School of Resource and Environment Management at Simon Fraser University in Burnaby, B.C.
Studies over the past several years suggest competition for food is affecting salmon runs up and down the West Coast, from Puget Sound chinook to Bristol Bay, Alaska, sockeye. In some instances, the fish are smaller when they return, making them more susceptible to predators. In others, runs are actually declining.
The situation for Snake and Columbia river salmon is less clear, though they have been found intermingled with other stocks as far away as the Bering Sea.
The competition between wild and hatchery salmon is nothing new. Wild salmon are considered heartier and more resistant to disease than their hatchery-raised counterparts.
If the salmon you buy at the fish counter isn't farm-raised, it's likely hatchery raised coho or chinook. Fishermen are expected to toss back any wild ones they catch. Before a salmon is released from a hatchery, one of its fins is clipped to distinguish it from wild ones. The fins can be clipped by hand or using a laser device.
'We know stocks from all over the Pacific intermingle and overlap,' said Ruggerone. 'There is a melting pot. But there is a lot we don't know.'
The issue of too many salmon and too little food is an international one, with Japanese hatcheries releasing mostly chum salmon, which are valuable for their roe, and the Russian hatcheries releasing pink salmon.
'Five years ago at a conference in Russia a guy stood up and said I was trying to start a war between Russia and the U.S.,' Ruggerone said.
Since the mid-1970s, the waters of the North Pacific have been slightly warmer, creating an upwelling that brings zooplankton, krill and other salmon food favorites to the surface. But a 20- to 30-year weather cycle known as the Pacific Decadal Oscillation could soon reverse itself, and colder water means less food for the salmon.
Climate change is causing even greater uncertainty.
'This concern about competing for limited resources may become considerably more acute if the North Pacific area occupied by salmon decreases due to climatic change,' according to an article co-authored by Ruggerone and Peterman published this fall in a technical journal published by the American Fisheries Society.
The article talks about a 'common pool' of salmon food in the North Pacific and suggests hatchery fish have become so abundant that there might not be enough food for the wild fish.
Despite years of study, salmon remain pretty much a mystery fish when it comes to the time they spend in the ocean. While much is known about the time they spend in fresh water and their journey down rivers and streams to the sea, once they enter salt water they pretty much disappear for up to three years, only to return to fresh water to spawn.
Pink salmon, the most abundant type of salmon, could be the main culprit when it comes to competition for food. While some juvenile salmon stocks linger in fresh water for a year or more, pinks rush to the ocean where they have first crack at the food and return a year later to spawn.
Scientists know Pacific salmon can migrate thousands of miles once they enter the ocean. Studies of fish that had been tagged at the hatcheries and later caught have shown that the fish are capable of traveling remarkable distances. But most of the studies date to the 1960s and 1970s, and scientists now want to use genetic testing to better track their journeys to the North Pacific feeding grounds.
'We have some idea what is going on, but there is a lot we don't know,' said Ruggerone.
Over the past several years, Ruggerone said, one West Coast salmon run had roughly three times as many fish return as expected and only one-tenth of the fish expected in another run showed up. No one knows why.
'The thing about science is every answer generates 10 more questions,' Ruggerone said.
Hatchery managers are well aware of the increased competition for food between wild and hatchery salmon in the Pacific.
'It's on people's radar screens,' said Sara LaBorde, a special assistant at the Washington State Department of Fish and Wildlife who works on hatchery issues.
About three-fourths of Washington state's 87 hatcheries produce salmon or steelhead. There are also 51 tribal hatcheries in Washington and Oregon and 12 federal hatcheries.
The state's hatcheries account for only 3 percent of all hatchery salmon released into the North Pacific.
Over the past decade or so, Washington state has cut its hatchery production by one-fourth, from 200 million fish to 150 million fish, because of concerns over dwindling wild runs and budget cuts, LaBorde said, adding that additional hatchery reforms may be necessary.
LaBorde and others also believe the issue needs to be internationalized and a multi-nation regulatory panel may be needed, especially if ocean food supplies dwindle because of changed climate conditions. The existing panel, the North Pacific Anadromous Fish Commission, does not have enforcement or policymaking powers, she said.
'We all know this is a big international issue,' she said.
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