Admittedly, reporters cherry-pick sometimes the more memorable quotes while neglecting to print others. It may be that Farrell already spoke about the seriousness of the issues and it wasn't reported in that news article. But I think the news article left a mistaken impression on the public that there was an easy fix to the serious issue of climate change and elevated water temperatures - using females with larger eggs in broodstock and using hatcheries to maintain the wild populations.
That is a good point and something that commonly happens when the media reports the news. Farrell could have said other things but the reporter could have omitted them. This is why I take news media stories regarding salmon in BC with a grain of salt. The public thinks they are getting the whole story but most of the time they are not. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news, Joe Public. It’s not so much what is said in the story – it’s more about what is missing for context.
It appeared Farrell agreed with those suggestions, without providing any caveats or cautions that I am sure he would have known about. I still take issue with that. He should have known better, and done a better job communicating these issues.
I think you may be reading too much into the story, Agent. If you are really that curious just contact the guy (see attached link). Just because it’s not in the story shouldn’t imply that people like Farrell are not concerned. Remember it’s a news story that is finite in length. It’s not as if he was being questioned at a judicial inquiry (he was an expert witness along with Miller explaining genomics). Again, people like Farrell, Hinch, Cooke, Miller and Clarke are leaders in Pacific Salmon physiology research. They don’t have a crystal ball but the research this team has done has revolutionize how we view the impacts of water temperatures and flows on Pacific Salmon physiology. However, when you look at what was predicted and what returned to the spawning grounds for Fraser Sockeye last year during a period of prolonged, extreme water temperatures it really presents more questions than answers. Huge enroute loss didn’t materialize. So, while these researchers do the best they can even they probably would admit that there are things we still need to learn.
http://people.landfood.ubc.ca/anthony.farrell/
Worked at a few a long time ago, but I never really like the walk-in freezer and the alarms freaked me out.Both you and Dave come from a hatchery background, Shuswap. Correct?
I do agree that hatcheries (i.e. stock assistance) are 1 component (and only but 1) - of a strategy to support/recover populations at risk. And like any tool - it needs to be used appropriately and only for as long as required - and honed. It is not a one-stop-shops-all response - which is why I was critical of the quotes attributed to Farrell, and the general "we got it all solved" assertions - w/o those caveats. I do agree with short-term stock assistance WHILE the other stressors are being worked on. In any "emergency" - you do what you have to do - but even in Hospitals - there is a recovery ward and a plan to rehabilitate the victim.
While I don’t necessarily disagree with everything you are saying, hatcheries are not going to go away as long as anglers on this board want to have opportunity to catch salmon. I just don't see it happening especially if there is economic benefit of anglers catching hatchery salmon. When you have businesses dependent on catching fish it is not likely hatcheries are going away any time soon. Working on other stressors is kind of pie-in-the-sky, in my opinion. We can likely identify all the stressors, but the biggest one, being climate change, is not likely to be solved in my or your lifetime. The cold hard fact is that some stocks need help right now and are not going to wait while we work on other stressors. Since the 80s many federal hatcheries were closed and not many (if any) have been built since so it’s not as if this is seen as the one-stop-response, in my opinion. Hatcheries do serve an important purpose in the coded wire tag program because being able to get enough wild Coho or Chinook to tag to make it worthwhile is very difficult – not just the numbers but the environmental conditions involved in capturing them during the spring for marking. Indicator stocks are important tools and CWTs are a large part of that.
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