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The second hatchery management problem is the process by which past experience is 

 transformed into current management decisions. Obviously, in order to improve, proper goals 

 must be established and the results of actions must be measured in terms of effects on the goals. 

 But ordinary practice has been to judge success by numbers or pounds planted from hatcheries 

 rather than the adults or catch produced, which are the proper goals. 



Whatever past goals should have been, they will clearly change in some fashion with natural 

 stock emphasis. In any case, there is no modem, organized process to collect and analyze 

 relevant information about measures of success to transform the results into new policies. 

 Further, there is no adequate feedback loop to consider what research is most likely to be 

 productive to improve success. There is, of course, much valuable experience currently in the 

 system which, properly organized, could yield much progress. Most of this remains in the 

 minds of individuals and disappears from the agencies when these persons leave, when it should 

 be stored in modem computers which could provide institutional memories to avoid such losses. 



In conclusion, the anadromous hatchery system of the Columbia, and probably the Northwest, 

 requires a central management authority. It should have ultimate responsibility for establishing 

 goals, comprehensive planning, and monitoring and evaluating success in meaningful terms. It 

 must be hdd accountable, be able to enforce its dictates, and will require a complete set of 

 modem information management tools. This is not a proposal for changing existing agency 

 control of particular hatcheries; rather, a higher level of control is required to remove 

 jurisdictional gridlock and promote progress. 



