Hatchery Meets Wild - Steelhead Season on Whittaker Creek

It’s a Saturday in late February. Seven drift boats bob in a line, the current of the Siuslaw River fighting to push them downstream. Still, their anchors hold steady, setting up the perfect position to make a cast. An elderly man leans back in his swivel chair and lights a cigarette, his line already set.  For each fishing rod in the boats, there are two on the shoreline. A quiet anticipation hangs on the air. The only sounds are the rush of water against the bank and the subtle click-click-click as a woman reels in her lure to try her luck somewhere else. Camping chairs, the rugged cooler full of beer – for everyone, it seems this is the exact place they want to be on a cloudy weekend in Oregon, and they are all here for the same reason. It’s winter steelhead season.

Though the scene is calm down below, a quarter of a mile upriver, in the clear tributary waters of Whittaker Creek, things are different. Beneath the bridge at Whittaker Creek Campground, where the creek deepens and fishing is prohibited, 50 or so steelhead swim in a tight group, their powerful dark bodies spotted with white fungus.

Steelhead are an anadromous form of the rainbow trout, meaning they spend time in the ocean, then return to fresh water to spawn, a process that is astounding for several reasons. Before the smolts, or juvenile trout are ready to leave freshwater, they begin to undergo a physiological transformation in the brackish estuary at the mouth of the river. Their internal chemistry adjusts to survive in salt water, while their scales turn a lighter silver color that acts as camouflage.

The adult steelhead at Whittaker Creek are long past this smolt stage, their frames bulky from feeding on marine nutrients. The end of their journey is near, though not all will reach their final destination. Signs of wear and tear are obvious; Some will ultimately succumb to the exhaustion of their hundred-mile journey, their bodies sinking to the gravelly bottom. But, for those that do possess sufficient strength and fortune, yet another obstacle blocks their path.

An angled barrier made of metal bars juts over the surface of the water, a fence of sorts that spans the width of the creek. On one side, a vertical slit leads to a large holding cage, marking the only viable path for the ambitious steelhead. Once inside, the fish are unable to return downstream. With this man-made structure, the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife employs some not-so-natural selection.

View of the Whittaker Creek fishing weir from the pedestrian bridge.

There are two types of steelhead in Whittaker Creek: wild and hatchery-born. In the spring, ODFW releases 70,000 smolts where Whittaker Creek meets the Siuslaw River. These hatchery fish then venture out to the Pacific Ocean, along with their wild steelhead counterparts, where they will grow for two or three years. When the fish eventually return to Whittaker Creek, volunteers with the Florence STEP (Salmon Trout Enhancement Program) sort them, releasing the native steelhead upstream and throwing the hatchery fish, which have a clipped adipose fin, back downstream.

Essentially, this process helps maintain the purity of the indigenous steelhead’s genetic makeup. John Spangler, the ODFW biologist who oversees fish management on the Siuslaw River, stresses why the preservation of resilient heredity is so important. “Fish that perform well in a hatchery environment tend to not perform well in the wild and vice versa.” Spangler says. “If hatchery fish stray from the release point they could spawn with wild fish and pass on genetic material that performs poorly in the wild and reduces survival of offspring. This could produce a downward pressure on wild stocks.”

In a 2014 study, scientists from Oregon State University not only confirmed the degradation of genetic quality when hatchery fish spawned with wild steelhead, but they also found that the rate of change was surprisingly quick. The research discovered that in just one generation, between the offspring of indigenous and hatchery-raised steelhead, there was a variation in more than 700 active genes.

Michael Blouin, a professor of interpretive biology at the OSU College of Science told the school's News and Research Communications department, “We expected hatcheries to have a genetic impact. However, the large amount of change we observed at the DNA level was really amazing. This was a surprising result.” Fundamental traits such as healing, metabolism, and resistance to disease, which have been perfected over millions of years by evolution for survival in a specific environment, could potentially unravel in a fraction of the time.

These findings solidify the differences between domesticated and wild trout, while increasing the importance of keeping the two separate. As a testament to how delicate ecosystem management is, even the rain can make this a problematic task.

Large volumes of rainfall swell the creeks and streams. Here lies the limitation of the fish weir system on Whittaker Creek. “Every year when we get a high water event winter steelhead go over the weir,” says Spangler. “We would need a higher structure to prevent migration over the weir during high water events.”

With hatchery fish able to pass the barrier across Whittaker Creek, the possibility of interbreeding is much higher. However, because constructing a taller barrier would be both an eyesore and a costly endeavor, it is a problem that doesn’t really have any feasible solution.

So why even risk interbreeding at all? Well, when the hatchery fish return to the Siuslaw, their sole purpose is not to breed, but to be caught by the many Oregonians who purchase licenses and tags each year in order to enjoy recreational steelhead angling. In a way, introducing hatchery fish to the Siuslaw River system actually acts as a buffer for the native trout population; regulations require the wild, unclipped steelhead to be released if caught, so ideally only hatchery fish are being taken from the river.

Ultimately, the opportunity to reel in a fish notorious for its vigor and fight does in fact create a sizable source of revenue in the state. In 2008, ODFW reported that 631,000 Oregon residents and non-residents participated in fishing activities, with 5.9% of all fish and wildlife related expenditures, or $147 million, benefiting local economies within 50 miles of home for said participants.

Evidence of Oregonians’ love for fishing is not difficult to find. The drizzly, Oregon winters are hardly enough to deter the most determined steelhead fishers. Even in a torrential downpour, odds are, there will be a rod on the shore and a lure in the water of the Siuslaw River. But beyond the excitement of landing a monster catch, there is much more to take into account for the future of native steelhead stocks in the Siuslaw and river systems across the United States.

Raina

Deep, slate-green eyes gaze intently, unblinking, two orbs framed by a radiant pattern of ink black spots. Those markings flow through a sea of golden-ochre and white, past perked ears and over arched shoulders, all the way down to a tail, flicking to and fro with a mind of its own. The otherwise motionless façade is broken for a moment as whiskers pull back and a bristly pink tongue curls into a feline yawn, exhaling warm breath into the cold air. Her face exudes intelligence and serenity as she looks down from her lofty perch. She has the features of a queen – Raina, the Amur leopard.

Her kingdom is far away. The Amur leopard’s natural territory was once a sprawling area, extending many hundreds of miles from the Primorye region of Eastern Russia into Manchuria, China, and the Korean Peninsula. Following disastrous habitat loss in the 20th century, their range was condensed to the Amur River Valley, with small remnant tracts in China and North Korea.

Nearly 5,000 miles away is the place that Raina and four other Amur leopards call home. Great Cats World Park, outside of Cave Junction, Oregon, is a privately owned and operated zoo dedicated to educating and increasing the public’s awareness about endangered big cat species.

Amur leopards are particularly at risk. This subspecies, which is smaller than it’s African counterpart, thrives in the harsh Russian winters due to its extremely thick coat. Traveler Hawk, a tour guide at Great Cats World Park explains how this adaptation ultimately contributed to the Amur’s decline, “One of the reasons that dates back a millennia is that beautiful coat that they’re wearing. They have particularly long and silky fur to go along with the beautiful clear rosettes. So that pelt is a status symbol - kings, queens, maharajas – they want that particular pelt.” Their prestige persisted into modern times as they became a sought after treasure for poachers. According to the World Wildlife Fund, in 1999 an undercover team confiscated female and male Amur pelts, which were being sold for $1,500 in the Russian town of Barabash, not far from a nature preserve meant to protect the animals.

This, coupled with human encroachment and development, pushed the Amur leopard to the brink of extinction. In 2007, eleven years after the International Union for the Conservation of Nature classified them critically endangered, the wild population was still estimated to be around 30 cats.

Another threat, common to any species with low numbers, is inbreeding. ALTA, or the Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance, is a network of 15 Russian and international non-governmental organizations dedicated to conserving the big cats through increasing public awareness, financial support, and preserving a healthy gene pool for reintroduction. Though Great Cats World Park is small, its operation is based on the same principles.

“We do the breeding here. Raina is the most recent cub we’ve had born and obviously she’s an adult,” says Hawk. “But as part of that breeding effort again we loan cats out to other facilities. What that entails, it can be difficult. The idea is to send different cats out to different areas where there are studbooks kept to make sure that the bloodlines are pure, so that we can trace them back to the wild. That’s how they’re able to be in the species survival plan program, but also to make sure they’re nice and diverse.”

All of the conservation efforts and international attention seems to be benefiting the cats. In 2012, Russia established its Land of the Leopard National Park, encompassing all of the Amur leopard’s known breeding grounds and the majority of its remaining habitat range. With camera traps, scientists are able to identify individual cats by their unique markings. New census data shows that in 2015, the population of leopards in the park numbered at least 57, double the previous count. It is a small success, but it’s a step in the right direction.

Back at Great Cats World Park, the sun is low in the sky. Raina crouches quietly behind a bush at the back corner of her enclosure, a splash of gold shimmering through the leaves. She and Traveler Hawk are playing their game now. Hawk walks back and forth at the fence, building the anticipation, enticing the instinct to hunt. In a flash, Raina leaps from her hiding place, covering 50 feet in mere seconds. It’s a clear demonstration of her ability as an apex predator. Hawk laughs with an air of appreciation. “Raina, as I’ve said before, is very smart. She has learned to snarl on cue just by watching another cat. She is the most likely to mess with her handlers when we are trying to get her in and out for cleaning and feeding.”

As Hawk will be quick to say, each cat has its own personality. It’s a characteristic that fascinates visitors to the Great Cats World Park and helps build a connection between people and the leopards – something she says is vital in the fight against species extinction. “In my personal opinion, education is the most important part of conservation. People are going to be concerned about a particular animal, or group of animals, or area in the world only if they know it exists and understand why it’s important worldwide.”