An official with the Alaska Department of Fish and Game has conceded that hatchery salmon may be causing negative effects on salmon populations in the Pacific.
However, since those effects are not yet proven scientifically, Alaska Department of Fish and Game Commissioner Doug Vincent-Lang said he remains in favor of salmon hatcheries, he wrote in an op-ed published in the Anchorage Daily News.
Hatcheries, he writes, produced USD 450 million (EUR 412 million) worth of commercially harvested salmon last year, have accounted for almost a billion meals across the world every year, and have enabled chinook, coho, and sockeye sportfishing, especially in South-Central and Southeast Alaska.
In response to questions as to whether hatcheries are helping or harming the wild salmon population in the state, Vincent-Lang argues that hatchery releases have been done responsibility and in moderation.
“Releases of hatchery salmon are not seeing meaningful increases in Alaska or internationally,” Vincent-Lang wrote. “Hatchery production levels have remained stable in Alaska since the mid-1990s, and in the entire north Pacific since the mid-1980s … In fact, about 85 percent of pink salmon in the North Pacific are wild stocks, not hatchery stocks.”
Vincent-Lang concedes that with many variables and moving parts, it is difficult to quantify the negative effects which hatchery releases may be having on wild salmon populations. Opponents of hatcheries argue that interbred hatchery fish leads to a weakening of the gene pool.
“Unfortunately,” Vincent-Lang writes, “the data are not definitive. There is no single cause or smoking gun responsible for recent change in any salmon populations.”
The commissioner points out that warming ocean temperatures have had a negative effect on salmon fisheries in the Pacific. Chinook salmon stocks in the north Pacific have been significantly lower than historical levels. At the same time, Vincent-Lang writes that the reason for the chinook decline is far from definitive and we may yet see a reversal in these trends.
Vincent-Lang ends his editorial on a confident yet cautious note.
“As Alaskans, we all care about salmon. We are all concerned when a stock of salmon is not doing well … we want to know why, and we want to do something about it … Thanks to sound policies, precautionary management principles and an active public process, we have the best salmon management in the word,” he said. “That said, we need to remain adaptive in the face of inevitable change and uncertainty. Sustainability will continue to guide our management philosophy.”
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