The Hood Canal Steelhead Project is a basin-wide expansion of innovative steelhead rearing and monitoring techniques developed by the precedent-setting Hamma Hamma Winter Steelhead Project. The Hood Canal Steelhead Project is a wider supplementation experiment which incorporates all steelhead-bearing Hood Canal river systems and is expected to last for 16 years.

Expanding the Scope of Steelhead Recovery

While the Hamma Hamma Winter Steelhead Project, led by Dr. Barry Berejikian, with rearing and release activities centered at LLTK’s Lilliwaup Hatchery, has been effective in helping to restore one threatened population, several recent events indicate the need for advanced understanding of the effects of steelhead supplementation on a larger scale.

• The Northwest Fisheries Science Center’s Recovery Science Review Panel strongly advocated that NOAA Fisheries take the lead in initiating a large-scale hatchery experiment that incorporates treatment and control streams (RSRP Report, 21-23 July 2003).
• The Northwest Power Planning and Conservation Council’s Independent Science Advisory Board has questioned assertions by supplementation hatchery programs that the programs have aided natural populations, and concluded that the assertion remains untested and requires an experimental design with both supplemented treatment streams and control streams that exclude hatchery salmon and steelhead.
• The ‘Alsea Decision’ and NOAA’s Draft Hatchery Policy highlight the continuing uncertainty regarding the merits of hatcheries in an era in which over two dozen ESUs have been listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act.
• The Hatchery Scientific Review Group (HSRG) has called for a wholesale revision of the ways that the State uses hatcheries in its management of steelhead statewide.
• WDFW is currently developing a new Steelhead Management Plan for Washington State.
• Puget Sound steelhead, including steelhead in Hood Canal, were listed as "threatened" under the Endangered Species Act in 2007.

A Basin-Wide Effort

Research for the Hood Canal Steelhead Project will occur on three streams supplemented with hatchery fish (Skokomish, Dewatto, Duckabush) and three control streams (Dosewalips, Tahuya, Big Beef), accounting for all major steelhead producing streams in Hood Canal. The project will compare the abundance, and genetic and demographic characteristics between the supplemented and control streams by implementing a Before-After-Control-Impact (BACI) experimental design.

The Hood Canal Steelhead Project represents a major partnership effort between NOAA Fisheries, Native American tribes, State and Federal agencies, community groups, and non-profits, as well as including the participation of many watershed-level volunteers.

The project is under the direction of NOAA researcher, Dr. Barry Berejikian. Fish rearing activities for two of the three treatment streams will occur at LLTK’s Lilliwaup hatchery (with early rearing at USFWS’ Quilcene NFH). Rearing for the third supplemented stream will occur at WDFW’s McKernan Hatchery. Participants from all partnering organizations, as well as community volunteers, will take part in surveys, egg collection, monitoring, and other field activities.

By expanding research on steelhead supplementation in Hood Canal, it will become possible to better evaluate and validate the benefits and risks of conservation hatchery programs and the life-history of steelhead; while simultaneously attempting to recover three populations to a point where they are self-sustaining.

This is the first-of-its-kind basin-wide supplementation experiment. Conclusions resulting from the study could be widely applicable to steelhead recovery in other parts of the region and even the country.