Oh those harvest minded folks in Tillamook county and participants of the most popular gear fishing website will cry "foul". No doubt certain Tillamook county good old boys will try to rally the troops against these closures because it may interfere with their pet projects....well to damn bad!
Coastal hatcheries, specifically the ones in Tillamook county are the models of waste and inefficiency. The deferred maintenance costs have made these hatcheries outdated and obsolete and they should be razzed into non-existence. This is the opportunity to finally rid ourselves of the stream polluting money holes these facilities have become.
Remember the cry and outrage from a few years ago about these same hatcheries? This time let's close them and if Tillamook county just has to have it's hatchery raised salmon and steelhead then those eggs can be reared by some other facility.
Myself, I would like to see an end to all hatcheries on the north coast and the wild spawning populations given a chance to rebound so this may be the opportunity for those wild fish to do just that.
I would rather see that Oregon general fund money that was spent on these wasteful hatcheries be spent on wild fish enhancement projects and habitat restoration instead of making sure guides have fish to harvest during the later winter months where historically they've never fished before until the steelhead broodstock programs were started. Let's close the coastal rivers in the heat of the summer and put an end to the ridiculous summer steelhead hatchery plants where the vast majority of fish go unharvested and so since that is the case then why even bother to keep pouring money into that program?
When you get right down to it the selfishness and greed of some is what keeps these programs afloat and it's my opinion that it's time to end it.
bravo, fella. you get an A for that essay.
ReplyDeleteright on.