34 



Mr. Hamburg. Could you comment a little more on the conserva- 

 tion hatcheries and the associated labor costs with that kind of 

 technique? 



Mr. Hershberger. Conservation hatcheries would incorporate a 

 fairly high labor cost because of the requirements, and what I am 

 defining as a conservation hatchery is one that you have referred 

 to where the habitat takes a period of time to be reintroduced and 

 redeveloped. And, consequently, conservation hatcheries are deal- 

 ing with two problems: one, maintaining the fish until we can de- 

 velop the habitat again and, secondly, taking steps that aren't part 

 of normal hatchery procedure to maintain the genetic integrity and 

 variability that is still within that population. We seem not to 

 want to make a move until we have to push the panic button, and 

 so, consequently, the techniques involved with keeping that varia- 

 bility and making sure that you maintain that population are 

 going to be much more intensive and much more costly than it 

 would be under what I would call now normal hatchery procedures 

 because of the care needed. 



For example, this may be a little bit of — our first example is the 

 Redfish Lake sockeye which is an active program now that is going 

 underway. It has required the retooling of an entire hatchery for 

 one thing and, incidentally, getting expertise from Alaska to learn 

 how to raise sockeye. But on the other hand, they also put three 

 foot banjo wire around the pump that supplies the water supply to 

 assure that there was no "accidental" turnoff of water. Such as 

 steps as these to take in this very panic-stricken approach are 

 going to require more investment, and that may be a little bit of 

 overkill, but that is what was done. 



Mr. Hamburg. Yes. Well, I think my time is up, but I want to 

 thank the panel for your very good presentations, and there was 

 certainly a lot of good food for thought for me and I am sure for 

 the rest of the committee. 



Mrs. Unsoeld. Dr. Koenings, I admire what Alaska did in the 

 way of recovery on the wild species, but I am just green with envy 

 when you talked about one agency. On the Columbia River, we 

 have got at least five agencies, three states, plus the tribes, and 

 dealing with hatcheries alone we have got three types: the Feds, 

 the states, the tribes all have hatcheries. It becomes very much 

 more complicated, and who is accountable for the success or failure 

 of the Columbia River hatchery system? Anybody want to dabble in 

 that one? 



Mr. Koenings. I will take a shot at that one. 



Mrs. Unsoeld. OK. 



Ms. Kapuscinski. I will take a shot too. 



Mrs. Unsoeld. Anyone want to offer who should be? 



Ms. Kapuscinski. I will take a shot. Well, as you probably real- 

 ize, the problem is that no one group is accountable, and, instead, 

 just different agencies are accountable simply for one particular 

 hatchery, and you have to understand that historically what was 

 viewed £is the objective in the hatchery was to put out the most 

 number of smolts, and so those agencies felt initially that they 

 were doing a good job because they were putting out a lot of smolts. 

 It took a long time for the ocean and the freshwater ecosystem to 

 show us that that alone was not working, but it is important to un- 



