7755 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home Browse Search

HATCHERY BASHING? "I just don't think all these negative things about hatcheries should be said," grumped a biologist in the front row'. tie said he was concerned that word of the shortcomingswasgetting into maga- zine articles and was causing anglers to question the value of hatcheries and "lose faith in us." No wonder he was concerned: He works for a company that designs hatcheries. Such defensive sen timents are voiced by others. I have price heard fishery administrators try to pass off the grow- ingcriticism as "hatchery bashing." But the call for reform is scientific, ethical, and wholly unlike enraged factory~rork- ers mindlessly smashing foreign cars with sledge hammers. Three other agenc~~ administrators (tiiartin et al. 1991) recently published an article entitled "Hatcheries and ~4'ild Stocks: Are They Compatible%" But it did not address the question. Instead, they wrote an opinion piece, without data or other evidence, in vague rebut cal to University of Washington profes- sor Ray Hilborn's article, "Hatcheries and the Future of Salmon in the North- ~~•est," a revelation of over-emphasis on artificial propagation, which appeared in the 'January-February 1992 issue of Fisheries, a lxilletin of the American Fish- eriesSociety. Strangely, the rebuttal was on the page ~irececlingthe article. The rebutters stopped short of the term "bashing" but, in a similar vein, characterized criticisms of fish culture as efforts to find "scapegoats" for the decline of mild fish populations. They feared that with open debate about hatchery programs, "Public confidence in the fishery sci- ence profession could be eroded and the public would ask: If these professionals caused the problem, can they be trusted to solve it%" Trying to stifle public dis- cussion does not meet the challenge of restoring re- sources. It's high time the public paraphrased a famous little lady and asked, "~'17tere's the fzsh%"Yes, many fishery professionals have overdone hatcheries and neglected their objec- tive e~ aluation, ~4•hile undervaluing habi- tat protection, habitat restoration, and control of harvest. Let's face up to this imbalance. Let professionals, anglers, and commercial fishers alike recognize the ecological problems, political pres- sures, and faulty mind-sets that contrib- uted to the crisis. And let's get busy, correct the imbalance, and be more effective at restoring the resource. Hatcheries are, of course, only part of the problem causing reduced wild fish populations, and some hatcheries can be beneficial in certain ways. Not all hatchery programs have been mis- guided, and not all hatcheries should be shut down. In view of fish cultural ineffectiveness and harm, people some- times ask whether there is ever a good reason to have a hatchery. The answer is yes: A few hatcheries can serve in temporary, lastditch "condorization"ef- forts of captive breeding to rescue and rebuild endangered fish species or re- place locally extirpated populations and many other hatcheries can be used for stocking lakes, ponds, and reser- voirs, where the fish survive far better than in streams. Also, the disease of focusing more on techniques and programs than on the resource ("management by activity" ratherthan "managementbyobjective") is not confined to fish culture. It occurs in habitat work and other functions, too. In any field, threats to established programs are sometimes fought harder than threats to the objective, which is, for us, the fishery resource. Hatchery programs seem particularly the concrete enclosure seldom sense how maladaptively artificial their phti~si- cal facilin~ is, nor what grotesque prod- ucts they produce init. (Amazingly, the head of one state's hatchery system claimed last year that, "ln our hatcher- ies we now imitate Nature.") So it's a healthy sign that, in general, hatcher- ies-and the illusory idea of artificial propagation itself-are being recog- nized and challenged as one of the causes of the fish scarcity problem. FACTIONS AND ETHICS ,Just as hatcheries are only part of the problem, fish culturisLs are only part of the fishery profession. Sure, the hatch- ery faction has been, by its narrowly focused domination of carious agen- cies, largely to blame for the Nature- contrary style that often has prevailed in fishery management. But, in this day and age, fish culture is far from being the whole profession. There is a newer, much different fac- tion. It is made up of frsher~~ ecologists, who work with free-living populations of fish, who strive to understand and manage in accord with the ways these fish function in stream, lake and ocean environments, and tti•ho are guided by the Evolutionary-Ecological Land Ethic of Aldo Leopold: 'A thing is right ruhen it tends to prese- tie tlt~ inlegrit}, stabilih~, and beaut,• of the biotic community. It is turong when. it lends othercurse. " The Evolutionary-Ecological Land Ethic is supplanting an older outlook in Hatcheries are only part of the problem causing reduced wild fish populations, and some hatcheries con be beneficial in certain ways. Not all hatcheries should be shut down... Hatchery programs are prone to manogement by activity. A hatchery can be o classic fool's paradises system based on false hopes and walled off from the reality of the natural resource supposedly being augmented...Most hatcheries were-and still are-judged by prone to management. by actirin~. A hatchery can be a classic fool's para- dise-a system based on false hopes and literally walled off from the reality of the natural resource supposedh• be- ing augmented. The personnel within natural resource management, the Re- source Conservation Ethic. That famil- iar ethic was originated by Gifford Pinchot at the turn of the cenntry. It espouses "the greatest good of the great- est number for the longest time." It AIrTUMN 1~2 TROI'T the amounts offish stocked, not by resultant fishing.