_The Oregon_ featured an article today summarizing a multi-generational study of the viability of hatchery versus wild stocks of steelhead in Oregon's Hood River.
As probably everyone reading this knows, hatchery steelhead do much more poorly in the wild than their stream-bred cousins. This multi-generational study finds the hatchery stocks continue to degenerate at an accelerated rate generation to generation. Because of the increasing load of inferior genes these hatchery stocks carry, the fish are virtually useless as rebuilders of wild runs and can cause serious harm to the wild stock gene pool if any of them actually succeed in breeding with a wild fish.
The full article can be found at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/119155652355280.xml&coll=7
Cheers,
Eric
As probably everyone reading this knows, hatchery steelhead do much more poorly in the wild than their stream-bred cousins. This multi-generational study finds the hatchery stocks continue to degenerate at an accelerated rate generation to generation. Because of the increasing load of inferior genes these hatchery stocks carry, the fish are virtually useless as rebuilders of wild runs and can cause serious harm to the wild stock gene pool if any of them actually succeed in breeding with a wild fish.
The full article can be found at:
http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/119155652355280.xml&coll=7
Cheers,
Eric