Related links:

• APRE Report to Congress (120k PDF)
• APRE Final Basin-Level Report

June 15, 2005

PORTLAND ? Fish hatcheries in the Columbia River Basin need clearly defined goals, better integration with wild fish production and better coordination among the numerous fish-production programs, the Northwest Power and Conservation Council recommends in response to a request from Congress. Over time, the Council believes these changes will increase the geographic range and genetic diversity of fish production, provide new harvest opportunities and help rebuild weak stocks of fish.

The Council's recommendations culminate a thorough examination of the management, function and performance of more than 220 fish hatcheries and fish-production programs in the Columbia River Basin. Congress asked for the examination and recommendations to assist future funding decisions for hatcheries that receive federal funding. The report that forms the basis of the recommendations, the Artificial Production Review and Evaluation, is available here.

The Council's four key recommendations are:

• Establish long-term management objectives for hatchery and wild stocks of fish describing measurable contributions to fish harvest and conservation.
• Identify hatchery programs as either integrated with wild fish or segregated from them and describe how hatchery fish and wild fish will contribute to long-term fish-management objectives.
• Implement hatchery reforms to align with basinwide fish-management goals and objectives, giving priority to biological benefits and cost-effectiveness.
• Monitor, review and regularly report progress of each hatchery toward long-term fish-management objectives.

?Our recommendations will serve as the basis for prioritizing changes in hatchery operations to reduce disease, improve the fitness and genetics of artificially produced fish, and improve their compatibility with fish that spawn in the wild,? said Chair Melinda Eden, an Oregon member of the Council. ?Hatchery managers are updating their practices, and we look forward to collaborating with them to achieve the objectives we identify in our recommendations.?

The Council intends that future hatchery production will be integrated with fish production goals and objectives identified in plans for individual tributary subbasins of the Columbia River. This week the Council adopted the last of 58 subbasin plans that were developed collaboratively during the last three years by watershed councils, state and federal fish and wildlife agencies, and Indian tribes.

?In the long run, changing hatchery practices consistent with subbasin plans will lead to greater genetic diversity of fish populations and more harvest opportunities throughout the Columbia basin,? Eden said.

The Council is an agency of the states of Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington and is directed by the Northwest Power Act of 1980 to prepare a program to protect, mitigate and enhance fish and wildlife of the Columbia River Basin affected by hydropower dams while also assuring the region an adequate, efficient, economical and reliable power supply.