End of the Line

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The "put-and-take" approach forms the basis of both the commercial and sport salmon and steelhead fisheries today. But critics say the hatchery fish not only mask the critical declines of wild runs but actively harm them by competing for food and space and by transmitting diseases. Perhaps more important, they threaten to dilute the genetic makeup of the wild fish by interbreeding.

These wild genes are the gold mine of the resource, some advocates say, placing wild fish several steps up the evolutionary ladder from their hatchery brethren. Wild fish are more aggressive as a result. Percentagewise, more wild fish survive the rigors of salmon life to spawn. Idaho, for example, pumps 22 million smolts into the Snake River each year, but too few return to even provide the hatcheries with brood stock. The cost of these fish has been estimated at more than $1,000 apiece.

Bill Kirk stands by a tank of coho smolts and tries to get them to rise for my camera. They've done this three or four times now, a conditioned response from hatchery workers flinging fish chow pellets at them. They learn that when a shadow passes overhead, food comes from above. In the ocean, this response gives gulls, cormorants, and other low-flying, fish-eating birds a field day.

The bottom line, Hobe Kytr says, is that hatchery fish are dumb.

The road to Skamokawa hugs the shores of the Columbia River, winding past islands of pilings where old canneries, docks and fish houses stood. Gas stations or any other signs of modern commerce are few and far between. In the town center of Skamokawa a group of small shops and stores seem to cling to both the water and the land. None are open. Most look abandoned. Only a small roadhouse/truck stop and museum dedicated to river life on the Columbia show any signs of life.

A faded Bristol Bay sailboat rudder points the way to Kent and Irene Martin's place, the same land that Kent's great-grandfather, John Strom of Sweden, laid claim to in 1873. For years it has been an ideal place for them. Kent grosses as much as $60,000 from the river in the best years. As the runs declined he diversified, fishing the healthier Bristol Bay salmon runs in Alaska. Last year he grosses just over $3,000 from the Columbia River, not enough to pay the insurance on the boat nor to make repairs. Fiver years ago he says he could have sold his boat, nets and license for $150,000. He doubts it would bring a tenth of that today. If it weren't for his disabled mother who lives nearby. Kent Martin says he wuld have left long ago for British Columbia or Alaska.

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