The biggest concerns when the marmot dam did come out was that there would be hatchery
fish straying into the upper wild fish sanctuary which we really couldn't control anymore because
there was no way for us to separate the two.
It used to be they would come into a trap at the dam and we could take hatchery fish
back down to the lower basin and allow wild fish to escape into the upper basin and now
that the dam is gone what we're finding is there's a tremendous stray rate.
The snorkel surveys that have been being done have proven that there are lots of hatchery
fish spawning in the upper basin with wild fish.
Of the five runs of salmon and steelhead in the sandy that are under federal protection
we've got a lot of work to do to get them to the point where they can be taken off the
endangered species list.
The chum have been extirpated.
We have two at very high risk.
The steelhead population is at high risk and we need to get all of those to the point
where they're at low or very low risk.
The steelhead our goal is to have it very low risk.
The reasons these fish are under the protection of the federal government is that the human
development has hammered them at many life stages.
Another limiting factor in the sandy is the role of hatcheries.
For a number of these populations we think that the contribution of hatcheries is causing
a significant problem and we've identified them as on the order of 80% reduction needed
in the threats caused by hatcheries.
One of the important elements of hatcheries that is oftentimes not discussed in the sandy
and elsewhere is the interactions between juveniles.
In the sandy with a hatchery that releases steelhead, coho, and chinook at the same time
we're trying to recover ocean type chinook and chum, that's an important element that
we should look at is what is going to be the ecological interaction between those hatchery
smolts and native fry when they get to the point where they're emerging in numbers.
One of the most incredible experiences that we had was this fall.
My family and I took a walk on the Salmon River Trail, which we often do.
It's just a few miles from our place.
For the first time that anyone can remember, we saw salmon spawning.
My biggest hope is that I can bring my God children and our other young friends on that
trail in seasons to come and point out those fish to them and know that those fish are
wild fish and that they're wild because we've used our dollars wisely and we've invested
public dollars in restoring these natural systems.
It is hard for me to understand what the logic is in us putting money into a hatchery system
that is not sustainable, that actually costs more money to maintain than what we get back
from it.
It doesn't make sense to me from an economic perspective, from a natural resource perspective,
or from sort of a natural history perspective.
To have a wild fishery close to a metropolitan area like Portland would be huge.
It would be one of the best things that I had seen in my life.
The people that care about having wild fish would be so influential in taking care of
their fisheries that this could thrive.
This could be the next project that really goes over the top and shows the world that
we can do this, that we can have a wild fishery in a metropolitan area that is successful
economically from a sportsman's standpoint, from just everything about it would be so
unique and great.
