Far too many fail to realize that the NMFS is under the Dept of Commerce last I looked so should you look to help from them it will be tainted help. Just as was the State help pointed out by LadyFisher above.

Sure seems as if there are several groups and all are determined to make it "their," fishery. You have the native fish folks, the wild fish folks, the tribes, the state, the Feds and a large group of folks who just want to catch fish and unfortuneately, the Commercial Lobby has infiltrated most of them all.

Since you didn't reply Kerry, I'll pass a along what I know to be a few facts.. The Chambers Creek strain has been used throughout the NW, and back east along the great Lakes. They are still releasing them and in quite a few places we now have a significant run of wild fish developed from the Chambers Creek releases over the years so yes Virginia, Hatchery Fish can and do colonize the wild and become wild fish in turn.. Wild fish being a fish hatched in the stream while a Native Fish is one that was originally there.

I brought that up above as all too often we hear from the wanna be fisheries expert that the Chambers Creek, or fill in the blank____ hatchery fish can't compete with the wild fish and then in the same breath but in a different part of their argument they argue that these damned ____ strain of hatchery fish will take over the river. Then this logic gets repeated by those who really haven't studied it at all but have a stake and a dream that they would like to see realized. It's high time that folks come together and do thier best to see the native fish runs returned while still providing for the tribes and sports anglers who have often been given the short end of the stick.

As far as the adverse effects in Washington state and the entire NW, the jury is out as to what causes the most adverse effect and my bet is and has been that it is Commercial Fishing! With millions of dollars of support from the Commercial Fishing Lobby they have made it popular opinion that dams are the problem but many of us don't see it that way at all! Get the Nets out and the fish will come back as has been proven all over the US where it has been tried!

For sure Dams, the Tribes, Hatcheries and more have effected the runs of native Fish for both good and bad, but in all these they seem to learn from their errors a lot more quickly than does the Commercials. So in the end to reply to my own questions (1) yes the new hatchery is using the same stocks they've been using, aka the Chamber's Creek strain. (2) Hatchery fish can survive in the wild and the evidence is all over the place from the Great Lakes to the NW and beyond. (3) They do survive but given a strong native fish presence, the Natives do out perform their hatchery brethern in some life stages. However there will be intermixing of genetics and for a fact most of the rivers have mixed wild fish now. If hatchery rainbows were ever stocked above the dam, then you very likely have mixed fish there also. I of yet, haven't seen research addressing this factor on the Elwha fish from above the dam.

The reason that anyone uses most of these partial truth arguments is to sway folks to their way of thinking without giving them the facts as the truth may be inconvienent or dangerous to their cause! . On the numbers of fish straying upriver from a hatchery release point near the mouth. Yes they do but in small numbers. There's also the danger of strays from other nearby rivers entering the system and all combined we have about 10% straying more or less but can range as high or higher than 50% given bad river conditions.

Anyway, good discussion folks and remember it's conservation of the fish that count and if we can use hatcheries to do that then great; if we can modify and use dams to allow them to remain then great, but if not get them out; if we can build wild runs while supplying fish for the tribes and sports anglers then superb but Nativ e fish do have a certain priority when we can determine that we have a true native.

Here's a bit of trivia for everyone. In the plans for Grand Coulee Dam a fish run to by pass the dam was included. To bad they, our Government just wrote of what was likely one of the greatest runs of Chinook ever!