Balancing Conservation and Harvest Objectives: a Review of Considerations for the Management of Salmon Hatcheries in the US Pacific Northwest

The U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW) has one of the largest suites of hatchery programs for anadromous salmonids in the world, with about 500 programs producing about 325 million juvenile fish. A total of about 0.7 million Pink Salmon Oncorhynchus gorbuscha, 21 million steelhead O. mykiss, 50 million Chum Salmon O. keta, 32 million Sockeye Salmon O. nerka, 41 million Coho Salmon O. kisutch, and 182 million Chinook Salmon O. tshawytscha are released annually from PNW hatcheries. These fish provide for robust, sustainable fisheries, and their production and release are designed to meet legal agreements, international treaties, and treaty trust responsibilities. However, this level of hatchery production is often assumed to have negative effects on the conservation of U.S. Endangered Species Act-listed salmon populations in the region. A review of the development of best management practices to balance the conservation and sustainable fisheries goals for PNW salmon hatcheries indicates that to be successful every hatchery program must (1) be scientifically defensible and relate to both published standards and statistically relevant outcomes, (2) have well-defined and documented goals with explicit biological and operational specifications, and (3) have protocols in place that enable managers to respond adaptively to new information. The focus should be on the biological integrity of the populations being propagated in or influenced by the hatchery environment, as opposed to the management of the physical facilities. Complete documentation for a proposed hatchery action component should include items ranging from hatchery location and water source(s) to all aspects of animal husbandry and harvest and the management plans for adult returns. The current science for items should be described and the choice of an action component justified in terms of either the scientific or policy basis of the expect outcome. Where appropriate, complete monitoring and evaluation plans for the proposed actions need to be described.