Tutka Hatchery Pink salmon suppresses our wild fisheries

SINCE –Kachemak Bay regulations direct that: “priority should be given to encouraging rehabilitation of depleted indigenous fish and wildlife populations”

THEN, our depleted crab, shrimp, herring and clams need priority to ensure impairments are removed that discourage or suppress recovery of these depleted populations.

SINCE, the Tutka Hatchery deliberately releases 125,000,000 aggressive predators intentionally to feed on our depleted baby crab, shrimp, herring and clam larvae.

THEN, this conflicting activity: gives priority to discouraging rehabilitation of depleted indigenous fish populations by encouraging artificial production of a genetically inferior known aggressive predator to feed on the very larva of the indigenous depleted populations.

SINCE the statutory purpose of salmon hatcheries is for the “REHABILITATION OF DEPLETED AND DEPRESSED SALMON FISHERY”

THEN the tens of millions of wild naturally spawning pink salmon returning to Cook Inlet annually demonstrate that pink salmon are neither depleted nor depressed, rendering the industrial sized Tutka pink salmon Hatchery moot, with no legal purpose.

SINCE State of Alaska law mandates, hatcheries “SHALL BE OPERATED WITHOUT ADVERSELY AFFECTING NATURAL STOCKS OF FISH”

THEN the State of Alaska has failed to understand the hundreds of scientific papers declaring hatcheries operated at this magnitude are “ADVERSELY AFFECTING NATURAL STOCKS OF FISH”

SINCE the Lower Cook Inlet fisherman most always make their living catching wild salmon in the Gulf of Alaska,

THEN the artificial Tutka hatchery pink salmon monoculture only serves a faulty corporate cost recovery business plan, jeopardizing wild salmon streams annually glutted and polluted with dead decaying carcasses.

SINCE- Cook Inlet Aquaculture (CIAA) and, ADFG proclaim in a co-authored paper that:

“These hatchery programs currently produce large numbers of fish that may pose ecological and genetic risks to wild populations.” and

“Recent studies show that hatchery rearing can reduce fitness in the wild and that hybridization between hatchery and wild fish can lower the overall fitness of wild populations.”

THEN, CIAA and ADFG are responsible and accountable for the “ecological, genetic and reduced fitness risk, and adverse effects, in our wild populations from the “large numbers of fish” deliberately released at the Tutka Hatchery.

SINCE, invasive species means: “An introduction in which a species moves into an established community and colonizes that area causing or is likely to cause harm.”

THEN, the Tutka Hatchery is an invasive species factory intentionally designed to colonize the recognized Shrimp and Crab Spawning Reproductive Concentration Area and wild salmon streams in Tutka Bay as designated by the ADFG Southcentral Alaska Habitat Management Guide.

SINCE by regulation: “All ADFG Department decisions and activities are required to: “recognize the cumulative impacts when considering effects of small incremental developments and actions affecting fish and wildlife”.

THEN, “All ADFG department management decisions have disregarded these mandates, regulatory goals, and the sustained yield principle of State law.” as it continues to prioritize the suppression rather than rehabilitation and protection of wild stocks of fish.

SINCE, the small preferred king, sockeye or coho “enhancement” activities of Kachemak Bay are 1000 times smaller than the Tutka “cost recovery” “sea ranching” “monoculture” Hatchery,

THEN the term “enhancement” must unmistakably be differentiated from “cost recovery” “sea ranching” or “monoculture” so interpretation of “enhancement” can never again be twisted to confuse or bribe the public or infiltrate policy decisions.

SINCE by law, “enhancement” can only be allowed if, and only if…“it is not at the expense of existing resource values including diversity and abundance of indigenous fish species,” like our depleted crab shrimp, herring, clams and wild spawning salmon.

THEN under multiple state laws, goals and policies, the enormous polluting discharges of the Tutka Hatchery pink salmon monoculture is not compatible to operate in Kachemak Bay, and state budgets are inappropriately squandered contrary to rehabilitating preferred fisheries.