Fate of surplus hatchery salmon?

[Cabezon]

I have known generally that salmon that return to hatcheries excess of the egg-take goals of the hatchery (that is, surplus salmon) are picked up by a contractor. The contractor is selected via an open bid process, but apparently the "winner" of this bid process for a number of years has been American-Canadian Fisheries Corporation from Bellingham. It is not easy to find out much about this company on the web - "run silent, run deep". The most informative web site that I could find was this 2015 article from the Chinook Observer. From the article, the company sends some fish to food banks (donations or sold?), while other salmon are converted to pet food or the eggs sold (probably to Asian markets). Does anyone have any additional information on this secretive company?
Steve

 

[G_Smolt]

They're one of the processors/fish pimps renting out space in BCS. Locally owned by the same folks who own Hannegans, if I remember right.

Cost-recovery contracts aren't new, and they're SOP for pretty much every PNP hatchery in AK as well. Not sure off WA statutes, but AK cost-recovery raceway fish can't be sold for human consumption unless thermally processed. The mature roe from most terminal cost recovery fish is far from "sushi grade" and is generally sold into European markets.

In a semi-interesting twist, BCS is majority-held by the same parent corporation that owns the majority stake of FarBank...

 

[Salmo_g]

If A-CFC is the B'ham outfit I think it is, one of the principals is a retired WDFW biologist, Andy something that I can't recall right now. The reason they bid so low is because typically most of the fish they buy is of really low quality, like fertilizer or maybe pet food. Every now and again they really make out and collect a bunch of bright Cowlitz hatchery spring Chinook, but that is far from the usual case.

 

[SilverFly]

Seems they would be put to far better use fertilizing watersheds to feed hungry fry.

 

[Cabezon]

Seems they would be put to far better use fertilizing watersheds to feed hungry fry.

This seems like a great idea, mimicking the natural environment where decaying salmon carcasses nourish otherwise nutrient-poor rivers and their riparian zones. And there is observational and experimental support for your statement that additional nutrients can really make a difference in the population. But there are several challenges. 1) There are concerns with introducing parasites and disease. 2) It is very time-consuming and man-power-intensive to collect, transport, and deliver carcasses (or fish-meal pellets) to the right area. To mitigate 1 and 2, there have been efforts to convert the excess carcasses into fish-meal pellets. This kills the parasites and the dried pellets are easier to transport. The third problem is delivering the "Goldilocks" amount of augmentation to the right places. Too little and you have no measurable impact. Too much could lead to eutrophication and problems with low dissolved oxygen. If "nature" dumps too many nutrients (and there is a fish kill), this is not a job-killing problem. But if fisheries managers kill a bunch of wild fish due to over-augmentation, lots of bad publicity follow. Either carcass or pellet additions have ephemeral effects. Once you stop, the positive impacts disappear.
Steve

 

[BDD]

I have an example of how convenience and economics trumped using surplus hatchery carcasses for stream nutrient enhancement. Priest Rapids hatchery is operated by WDFW. When I worked there before the turn of the century, the surplus carcasses not used for spawning were frozen and placed in streams for nutrient enhancement purposes. After awhile, a concern about disease arose and the practice was discontinued.

Fast forward a decade later a number of fisheries enhancement groups were trying to use surplus carcasses for nutrient enhancement. A number of options were considered to treat the carcasses to control disease (heating, removing heads and viscera, etc.) but the best approach was converting them into "analogs" for stream distribution and nutrient enhancement. I found a company on the coast who would manufacture stream-ready analogs in exchange for carcasses. I worked with WDFW to see about possibly starting up this operation but unfortunately for nutrient enhancement possibilities, WDFW had just extended their contract with ACFC and since WDFW operated Priest Rapids (even though they did not own it) the surplus carcasses belonged to WDFW and they were contractually obligated to provide the carcasses to ACFC.

There are a number of options for these carcasses, some are fit for human consumption, some are converted to pet food, there can be commercial value (roe) and some are chemically treated that need proper disposal. This last category was a big problem for WDFW and they wanted a one-stop carcass removal situation, a company that would take/dispose of all carcass grades and that is how WDFW resolved their carcass problem. Everybody wants the higher quality carcasses but nobody wanted to deal with the chemically treated carcasses. In order for WDFW to effectively and conveniently address this problem, they had to award the contract to the highest bidder (ACFC) who would take all the carcasses regardless of quality.

I reached out to several tribal hatcheries to see if there as any interest in converting their surplus carcasses to stream enhancement analogs and while there was interest, as mentioned above, the logistics of transportation, manufacturing, and distributing the final product is expensive and time consuming. While I think it could still be done (and heaven knows our streams could use increase productivity) by using volunteer work and finding the right analog manufacturer, but it all times time, money, and effort.

 

[DoesItFloat]

I do not know anything about the company, but in my time at Bonneville and Little White Salmon hatcheries, I asked the guys in the big trucks taking the excess Chinook what happens to them, and they said dog food and "lox". This was mainly URB's and tules. The excess fish that weren't sold were tossed on the bank somewhere for riparian enhancement.

 

[Josh]

but the best approach was converting them into "analogs" for stream distribution and nutrient enhancement.

I'm not familiar with what a fish "analog" is.

 

[Bruce Baker]

If A-CFC is the B'ham outfit I think it is, one of the principals is a retired WDFW biologist, Andy something that I can't recall right now. The reason they bid so low is because typically most of the fish they buy is of really low quality, like fertilizer or maybe pet food. Every now and again they really make out and collect a bunch of bright Cowlitz hatchery spring Chinook, but that is far from the usual case.

Andy A? (sent you a PM)

 

[BDD]

I'm not familiar with what a fish "analog" is.

The analogs are the end product (maybe think of it like a hockey puck) of taking the carcass meal and adding a binder to keep it together so the nutrients can be leached into the streams over time. The advantages are they are pasteurized (disease free), easy to transport to the streams (light, no water weight), and are easier to store (longer shelf life) than the carcass itself.

 

[BFC]

Andy and his wife are the owners of Fat-Cat Fish Co.
They produce pet food using the fish from the hatcheries, they can't use fish with high fat content so those end up getting donated to the food bank.
Andy and his group does not harvest any eggs to sell to the asian market from the hatcheries as they have all be stripped.

 

[Dustin Chromers]

Seems they would be put to far better use fertilizing watersheds to feed hungry fry.

WDFW would need to spend millions getting it done and even then it wouldn't happen.

 

[Paige]

WDFW would need to spend millions getting it done and even then it wouldn't happen.

Our old TU club would do it a couple times a year in the late fall early winter, a couple totes from the Wallace Salmon hatchery and we'd drop em up on the NF of the Sky.

Slimy, nasty, cold n frozen hands but was fun. Dont know if it helped or not, but we did it anyways. @rimmey was also envolved and would fish afterwards.

 

[Josh]

they can't use fish with high fat content so those end up getting donated to the food bank.

Which species are those? Kings and.....sockeye maybe?

 

[Stonedfish]

The Nisqually tribe does a salmon giveaway of excess salmon once they’ve been spawned.
SF

Free salmon giveaway starts Thursday on JBLM

Free salmon available over three days at the Nisqually Tribe's Clear Creek Hatchery on Joint Base Lewis-McChord Sept. 27; Oct. 4 and Oct. 11.

www.army.mil

 

[Shad]

I'm a big proponent of nutrient enhancement versus sale for profit. Unfortunately, in America, no opportunity to profit goes unexploited for long, and that opportunity almost always trumps conservation needs.

As regards the risks/costs of using excess carcasses for stream enhancement, I think those challenges are mostly products of people profiting off the resource now. First, the risk of parasites, etc... assuming most of those parasites spread in hatchery raceways (we know standard fish farming practices create rich environments for parasites to thrive in), the way to minimize that threat would be to simply stop taking fish into the hatchery once spawning needs are met. Simply let whatever's left outside the hatchery die and rot. If it's not the case that most parasites are spread at hatcheries, I would ask why that was not a recognized risk to fish in the days before hatcheries.

As regards the concern of catastrophic overescapement, while I know that's a thing that occasionally happens in places like Alaska, I don't think there's much chance of that happening in Washington these days, largely because in a typical year, as much as 80% of Washington hatchery fish die in ocean and other fisheries before they reach their terminal streams, by design. If it did happen (like it potentially could this year, with runs performing above an optimistic forecast), that would be the time to put a mop up fishery outside the hatchery up for bid. Sounds like there's a market for it already....

Another concern associated with leaving a bunch of excess hatchery fish in a river is that they might spawn with the native fish. We can debate how good or bad that is, but it seems, based on decades of hatchery supplementation, like hatchery introgression is less of a concern for salmon than steelhead, so I doubt it's much of a risk at all. That said, I don't want to get too far over my skis, so I'll let others (who know better) tackle that.

Anyway, it has long been my opinion that a big factor in the decline of our anadromous fish stocks has been perennially starving our rivers of the nutrients dead salmon provide (mostly by harvesting down to whatever we think is the minimum number of fish required to seed a system, but I suppose also by selling excess hatchery carcasses to be used elsewhere). The whole thing is a profit-motivated, vicious cycle. By using degraded habitat as justification to decrease escapement goals (to allow one stakeholder or another to harvest more), we have exacerbated the problem of low nutrient levels, to the point where it is further degrading what habitat is left. Then, we use that as justification to further lower escapement goals. It doesn't take much imagination or education to see how doing that leads us down a path to slightly prolonged extinction, at best.

As you can see, I could go on about this forever, but it's time to wrap it up, so I'll close with my unwavering, absolute assertion that the beginning, end, and everything in between as regards the decline of Pacific Salmon comes down to someone's perceived need to profit from the resource. The almost immediate solution to "save" salmon is to leave them alone. Stop indiscriminate harvest in mixed stock fisheries (ocean), and every single river in the PNW will immediately see the returns increase dramatically. Indeed, the only reason we need hatchery fish is to feed commercial markets. Take away hatcheries and restrict all fisheries to terminal areas is the answer that helps the fish, but almost nobody profits from that, so it's a non-starter.

Profit motive has been the primary, limiting factor for salmon populations. Fixing that problem only requires limiting or eliminating mixed stock harvest. It is just that simple. Trouble is, "that simple" is hugely complicated. It costs managers nothing to implement the ultimate solution, but the socio-economic costs make it prohibitively expensive. Same conundrum exists with any other "simple" solution, so here we are, in the ultimate irony, trying to figure out what to do with "excess" fish. Sounds crazy because it is....

 

[Stonedfish]

I'm a big proponent of nutrient enhancement versus sale for profit. Unfortunately, in America, no opportunity to profit goes unexploited for long, and that opportunity almost always trumps conservation needs.

As regards the risks/costs of using excess carcasses for stream enhancement, I think those challenges are mostly products of people profiting off the resource now. First, the risk of parasites, etc... assuming most of those parasites spread in hatchery raceways (we know standard fish farming practices create rich environments for parasites to thrive in), the way to minimize that threat would be to simply stop taking fish into the hatchery once spawning needs are met. Simply let whatever's left outside the hatchery die and rot. If it's not the case that most parasites are spread at hatcheries, I would ask why that was not a recognized risk to fish in the days before hatcheries.

As regards the concern of catastrophic overescapement, while I know that's a thing that occasionally happens in places like Alaska, I don't think there's much chance of that happening in Washington these days, largely because in a typical year, as much as 80% of Washington hatchery fish die in ocean and other fisheries before they reach their terminal streams, by design. If it did happen (like it potentially could this year, with runs performing above an optimistic forecast), that would be the time to put a mop up fishery outside the hatchery up for bid. Sounds like there's a market for it already....

Another concern associated with leaving a bunch of excess hatchery fish in a river is that they might spawn with the native fish. We can debate how good or bad that is, but it seems, based on decades of hatchery supplementation, like hatchery introgression is less of a concern for salmon than steelhead, so I doubt it's much of a risk at all. That said, I don't want to get too far over my skis, so I'll let others (who know better) tackle that.

Anyway, it has long been my opinion that a big factor in the decline of our anadromous fish stocks has been perennially starving our rivers of the nutrients dead salmon provide (mostly by harvesting down to whatever we think is the minimum number of fish required to seed a system, but I suppose also by selling excess hatchery carcasses to be used elsewhere). The whole thing is a profit-motivated, vicious cycle. By using degraded habitat as justification to decrease escapement goals (to allow one stakeholder or another to harvest more), we have exacerbated the problem of low nutrient levels, to the point where it is further degrading what habitat is left. Then, we use that as justification to further lower escapement goals. It doesn't take much imagination or education to see how doing that leads us down a path to slightly prolonged extinction, at best.

As you can see, I could go on about this forever, but it's time to wrap it up, so I'll close with my unwavering, absolute assertion that the beginning, end, and everything in between as regards the decline of Pacific Salmon comes down to someone's perceived need to profit from the resource. The almost immediate solution to "save" salmon is to leave them alone. Stop indiscriminate harvest in mixed stock fisheries (ocean), and every single river in the PNW will immediately see the returns increase dramatically. Indeed, the only reason we need hatchery fish is to feed commercial markets. Take away hatcheries and restrict all fisheries to terminal areas is the answer that helps the fish, but almost nobody profits from that, so it's a non-starter.

Profit motive has been the primary, limiting factor for salmon populations. Fixing that problem only requires limiting or eliminating mixed stock harvest. It is just that simple. Trouble is, "that simple" is hugely complicated. It costs managers nothing to implement the ultimate solution, but the socio-economic costs make it prohibitively expensive. Same conundrum exists with any other "simple" solution, so here we are, in the ultimate irony, trying to figure out what to do with "excess" fish. Sounds crazy because it is....

No doubt a lot of our hatchery fish get taken out in mixed stock ocean fisheries….and not just by Washington anglers.
I still don’t think hook and line anglers are that efficient in removing hatchery fish.
Just look at the hatchery return numbers.
There are almost always surplus fish at the major hatcheries.
Part of the reason is how restrictive our fisheries have become, especially in Puget Sound. We can’t fish for fish we pay for.
Take Marine Area 9 as an example. This year it had a quota of I believe 4,700 chinook.
As of last Thursday’s hatchery escapement report, there are currently over 67,000 chinook back to major hatcheries south of MA 9.
That is not counting any of the smaller hatchery programs.
So those fish swam through MA 9, but weren’t caught during the whooping nine days that chinook fishing was allowed. Some also swam through MA's 10,11, 12 and 13 on their southward journey not to mention marine waters outside of Washington plus possibly other marine areas outside of Puget Sound (4,5,6 & 7).
Add in ESA listings and no October coho fishing in MA 9 and I don’t see how there isn’t almost always going to be surplus fish at least at Puget Sound hatcheries.
Buy hey, let’s always close down or restrict sportfishing as a first option….
Sorry for the thread drift.
SF

 

[Dustin Chromers]

Our old TU club would do it a couple times a year in the late fall early winter, a couple totes from the Wallace Salmon hatchery and we'd drop em up on the NF of the Sky.

Slimy, nasty, cold n frozen hands but was fun. Dont know if it helped or not, but we did it anyways. @rimmey was also envolved and would fish afterwards.

Always thought that was a good program. The department obviously has other ideas of what a good program is.

 

[CRO]

several years ago i chatted with a fellow angler whose outdoor group used to help withe the steelhead spawning at the Whitehorse hatchery. He said that they would send the fish to local food banks until, if i remember right , the dept of health stopped them because of food handling issues.

 

[Chucker]

Always thought that was a good program. The department obviously has other ideas of what a good program is.

The upper Sky seems like it really needs that marine subsidy to be productive. When I have been up there I have been surprised how lifeless it seems. Problem is that it would take more than a couple of totes of fish. Maybe a million of them every year might do it.