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About Spilyay tymoo. (Warm Springs, Or.) 1976-current | View Entire Issue (April 20, 2011)
Page 14- Apri 20, 2011 Spilyay Tymoo, Warm Springs, Oregon First N o -H itte r BUNNY MONEY CASH DRAWINGS WEDS. THURS AND FRIS 8PM-11PM $1.500 CASH DRAWINGS FRIDAYS AT MIDNIGHT. EASTER EASTER BRUNCH 9AM-3PM IN THE CHINOOK DINING ROOM. EASTER EGG HUNT 12PM IN THE V ILLA G E BLUES NIGHT FRIDAY, APRIL 29 th DOORS OPEN AT 7PM MUSIC BEGINS AT 7:30 PM. CHUCK WICKS FRIDAY, MAY 20™ Tickets available at kahneeta.com or call 541.553.1112. HIGH DESERT RESORT & CASINO 541.553.1112 * kahneeta.com ♦ 800.554.4786 ♦ Join us on Facebook P I Shows 21 and over. POOLS « DINING « RV PARK « STABLES 3 FAVORITES FOR $5 Only at Your Locally Owned Madras Blockbuster Store. Not Redeemable for Cash Limit 1 coupon per week per Membership Account. Not uaiiri u tjfh any otfifir discounts or offers, momborshio rufes soolv. excludes video ¡/onto rentols> Expires 4/30/11 Yvonne Iverson/Spilyay Congratulations to Kahne Katchia, age 10. Kahne last week pitched the first-ever no hitter game at a Sisters Little League field. He has the baseball to remember the occasion. Fisheries news Groups threaten suit over hatchery SANDY (AP) - A 59-year- old hatchery 20 m iles from downtown Portland has jumped to the center of the Northwest’s salmon debate, with fish advo cates saying the hatchery threat ens the Sandy River’s thin runs of wild fish. The Sandy Hatchery is part of a sprawling Northwest hatch ery system that aims to'compen- sate for damage to fish runs from dams in the Columbia River basin, where taxpayers and fish ing license holders pay upward of $80 mil Hon a year to support hatcheries. In Oregon alone, 32 hatch eries released nearly 39 million juvenile salmon and steelhead last year, a torrent of fish that supplies commercial fishermen and sports anglers when adults return from the ocean. After more than three de cades of hatchery debate, Pa cific Rivers Council and the Native Fish Society upped the ante this week by singling out the Sandy Hatchery. The groups filed a 60-day notice of intent to sue the Or egon Department of Fish and Wildlife and the National Oce anic and Atmospheric Adminis tration over the hatchery's im pacts on wild fish and delays in reviewing those impacts. NOAA already says it will accelerate review of the hatch ery at Oregon’s request, mak ing it the first to get full scru tiny under updated standards. The Sandy River is a prime spot to recover wild runs listed under the Endangered Species Act and to make sure the latest science on hatcheries gets ap plied, said John Kober, Pacific Rivers Council’s executive direc tor. Since 2007, two dams have come down in the Sandy basin, including the Marmot Dam on the Sandy’s main stem, giving fish free passage to some 100 miles of streams. R atepayers in the city o f P o rtlan d , w hich dam m ed a Sandy tributary, the Bull Run River, to create the city’s drink ing water reservoirs, are help ing pay for $100 million of on going Sandy River »restoration. “We’ve addressed a lot of is sues on the Sandy,” Kober says. “If we address hatcheries we can recover wild fish and get them off the endangered species list.” By using eggs from wild fish, hatcheries helped keep w ild Snake R iver sockeye and chinook populations in north east Oregon going when their numbers dipped dangerously low. But w ithout proper safe guards, returning hatchery fish can “stray” to wild spawning grounds and breed with wild fish, weakening productivity, numerous studies indicate. They also compete with wild fish for food and space. In 2009, a scientific review group for NOAA concluded that hatchery fish have lower survival rates and are less suc cessful reproducing than wild fish. Natural spawning of hatch ery fish “clearly poses genetic risk to natural populations,” the group said, as fish fed by hu mans and raised absent preda tors bypass the rigors of natu ral selection. Fish and W ildlife officials have improved Sandy Hatchery to reduce those impacts. The hatchery produced 1 m illion smolts in 2010, including coho, spring chinook and steelhead. They now mix wild fish into much of the hatchery stock, in part to reduce genetic harm if the fish do stray. They reduced releases of spring chinook, the species most likely to stray. They built an “acclimation pond” to try to better attune hatchery fish to their home base. This spring they’re pütting traps at strategic points in the Sandy River to keep hatchery fish away from wild spawning grounds. Oregon has moved aggres sively on hatchery reforms, said Liz Hamilton, executive direc tor o f the N o rthw est Sportfishing Industry Associa tion. “Some people really do know how to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory,” Hamilton said. “Is this really the best place for us all to have a batde?” The Sandy River’s fishing guides see the hatchery’s results firsthand. They also help frame the debate. Jack Glass, 55, has guided on the Sandy for 28 years, catch ing spring chinook but mostly focusing on hard-fighting win ter steelhead. Glass’ fear: Pressure on the hatchery, combined with tighter budgets, will further reduce re leases and cut fishin g even more. Given limited habitat, he says, the wild fish “won’t return in sustainable num bers that would allow any kind of harvest fishery.” “We’re OK with catch and re lease of wild fish, but we want to have the opportunity to re tain a few hatchery fish — that drives the industry,” Glass says. Anglers are required to re lease wild fish. Within limits, they can keep hatchery fish — distin guished by a clipped adipose fin. Fish and W ildlife reports about 2,100 hatchery steelhead caught on the Sandy in 2009. The sp rin g chin oo k catch dropped to 324 that year, down from numbers in the thousands up to 2005, in part because of the cuts to spring chinook hatch ery releases. Jeff Hickman, 29, has guided on the Sandy for a decade, af ter years of fishing on the river before classes at Sandy High School. His clients are fly fish ermen, who favor catching and releasing more aggressive wild fish. H ickm an’s fear: H atchery fish will depress or eliminate the wild population. In Puget Sound this Febru ary, Washington abruptly shut down all steelhead fishing — in cluding catch-and-release — on four key rivers because of low returns of wild steelhead cov ered under the Endangered Spe cies Act. “Hatchery fish are kind of a dead end street,” Hickman says. “I think we need to give the river a chance to prove itself.” Fish and Wildlife estimates about 1,300 wild spring chinook and 1,400 wild winter steelhead — both listed under the Endan gered Species Act — returned to the Sandy last year. Steelhead numbers dipped into the 600s in 2005 and 2006, when counts at the M arm ot Dam allowed more accuracy. Both counts are far below historic run sizes. In its latest review, Oregon classed the S an d y’s spring chinook at “moderate” risk for extinction; w inter steelhead ranked “high.” But wild fish numbers appear to be trending up, in the Sandy and b asin w id e, says Todd Alsbury, a Fish and Wildlife fish biologist. And more nests in the Sandy's spawning beds in 2010 indicate habitat improvements and dam removal are beginning to pay off.