Studies over the past 10 to 15 years have shown that steelhead from differing water sheds vary significantly. These show that the fish of a particular drainage adapt to that drainage. Rivers with a higher gradient than another will produce fish that are larger and stronger and have a better chance of surviving to their spawning grounds. Also these fish will adjust their spawning times to the river they are native to improving the odds of the parr surviving. These changes have taken thousands of year to develop. When steelhead from another drainage are introduced several scenarios can take place. One would be the fish are preprogrammed to spawn earlier then the native fish, which is the case with the Chambers Creek steelhead. An earlier spawn means an earlier maturing parr which is larger and can out compete the native parr which hatch later and are developmentally behind the introduce stock. This can limit the ability for the native parr to survive. Now you have a dominant species that is not native to the system and over time they begin to fail because they are not adapted to the drainage they were introduced to. This scenario has been played out across the northwest steelhead rivers and has been shown to be a contributing factor in the collapse of native steelhead across the region. Why would they purposely repeat the same mistakes in the Elwha? The only answer is some of those in charge do not want to wait for the river to heal itself. They are too concerned with producing fish now to be worried about what will happen in the future.