This is an article by me in response to a speech given by Jim Buchal to the Kitsap Alliance of Property Owners in Washington State. Buchal, a Portland, OR based lawyer for industry and property rights special interests, is known for his confrontational manner and vociferous opposition to salmon recovery efforts and the related fisheries science. In the referenced speech he claims that genetic diversity and riparian spawning habitat have nothing to do with the health of salmon populations, and viciously attacks the science and scientists behind the research on salmon ecology. In my response I address the pseudoscience and poor reasoning with which he defends his claims, and his generally abusive and unprofessional tone.

This paper by Perez et. al. studies the loss of genetic variability among farmed raised coho salmon (Oncorhynchus kisutch (Walbaum)) in Chile compared to their wild counterparts. Yet again, results showed what everyone not in Bush Administration fillet-and-release denial already knows - that hatchery raised salmon are not the same as wild ones, and cannot replace them or secure their continued existence. Perez and his colleagues studied allozymic variability and its distribution within and between some commercial strains of coho salmon in southern Chile which were selected randomly from 4 Chilean hatcheries. The genetic variability was estimated by using horizontal starch gel electrophoresis methods to examine variability in 51 enzymatic loci. The hatchery and/or farm raised coho salmon displayed considerably less genetic variability than their wild counterparts - and correspondingly, less survivability.

Here is yet more research regarding the effects of hatcheries on wild fish populations. In this paper the impact of hatchery reared steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss) on Snake River populations of wild steelhead and chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) are studied. Once again, it is found that they negatively impact wild populations to a significant degree.