I was recently appointed to serve as one of two wild fish advocates on the board of the Oregon Hatchery Research Center, which you have probably never heard of. It’s a collaboration between ODFW and Oregon State University with a small budget, but doing some interesting research. I first became aware of the OHRC during my time on the board of ODFW’s Restoration & Enhancement program. Obviously, hatcheries, particularly those producing salmon and steelhead, are controversial but I think they have a role to play and with the current hatchery resiliency effort underway the timing of this appointment could be fortuitous.

As I stated in my application for the OHRC board, I have been a wild fish, water, and angler advocate since moving to Oregon in 2004.  In my ideal world, dams would be removed, habitat would be restored, and global warming would cease, thereby creating better fresh water and ocean conditions for anadromous fish.  The scientific evidence is clear that the intermingling of hatchery origin fish with wild, native fish is detrimental.  Nevertheless, the world we live in necessitates the ongoing operation of hatcheries in at least some capacity.  I would like to be involved in the exploration of how this can be done in a way that diminishes deleterious impacts.