I wonder if salmon hatcheries are really all that good for the salmon populations of particular rivers in any case. We're probably raising fish that are adapted to hatchery conditions, changing their genetics over time and contaminating the genetics of the wild population making them less able to succeed in the natural non hatchery environment. So might not be so bad in the long run.
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www.discovermagazine.com
Salmon hatcheries, except for a very few small conservation hatcheries, are and never were intended to contribute to the well being of wild salmon populations. Hatchery salmon are cultured for the purpose of contributing to salmon fishing harvest by commercial and recreational fishers, and also to some degree for ceremonial and subsistence treaty fishing. That said, the damage has been done. The preponderant stock of Chinook salmon in PS, both hatchery and wild, is Green River hatchery origin. The only remaining endemic wild Chinook salmon remaining in PS that I can think of are: Nooksack spring, Skagit spring and summer, Skykomish summer (& maybe fall), Snoqualmie fall, White River spring, Dungeness-Greywolf spring. Because of spatial and temporal separation, PS hatchery fall Chinook can't do much damage to the remaining wild Chinook - or they would have already done it.
There remains some wild endemic coho salmon populations in north PS, but the preponderance of PS coho are now either of hatchery origin or wild coho well mixed with a hatchery background. Most outplanting of hatchery coho fry has stopped, so the resulting wild coho have been tending back toward the characteristics that are best suited to the ecosystems they now inhabit.
Slashing salmon hatchery spending and production will harm salmon harvest in WA state because there are almost no harvestable wild Chinook or coho. I only begrudge that WA taxpayers and license buyers aren't getting what they pay for, and they are about to get even less.