Conservation, News

Right now, Oregon’s state legislature is considering a bill, HB 3150, that will require ODFW to utilize hatch boxes in southern Oregon, a strategy that is ineffective at bolstering commercial and recreational fisheries and threatens the conservation and recovery of wild fish populations. Hatch boxes place fish eggs from a fish hatchery directly in a river instead of hatching the eggs and rearing the young fish in a hatchery facility. This management scheme was abandoned by the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife due to its ineffectiveness (very few fish survive to adulthood) and because it complicates the management of wild and hatchery fish populations.

Specifically, hatch boxes have the following problems:

1) Hatch boxes harm wild fish populations and impede recovery efforts;

2) Hatch boxes fail to contribute to sustaining or improving fisheries;

3) Hatch boxes impede ODFW’s ability to meet the state’s legal obligations, Endangered Species Act mandates, and conservation plan directives;

4) Hatch boxes are inconsistent with the state’s Native Fish Conservation Policy;
5) Hatch boxes divert the department’s limited resources; and

6) Hatch boxes risk the resiliency wild fish need to survive our changing climate

Please take a moment right now to sign the action alert to legislators today and join the groundswell of public support that is speaking out against HB 3150 and speaking up for wild fish!