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216clear creek hatcheryIn Salmon Without Rivers, author and biologist Jim Lichatowichtakes it a step further, acknowledging that humans have not onlyfailed to recognize the importance of the whole picture but have triedto manufacture elements that can only be created by the forces ofnature:Fundamentally, the salmon’s decline has been the consequence ofa vision based on flawed assumptions and unchallenged myths—avision that has guided the relationship between salmon and humansfor the past 150 years. We assumed we could control the biologicalproductivity of salmon and “improve” upon natural processes that wedidn’t even try to understand. . . . The natural limits of ecosystemsseemed irrelevant because people believed they could circumventthem through technology. . . . Since the turn of the twentieth century,the natural productivity of salmon in Oregon, Washington, California,and Idaho has declined by 80 percent as riverine habitat hasbeen destroyed. To confront this loss, we need a different vision, a differentstory to guide the relationship between salmon and humans.Hatcheries have brought much-needed stability to runs, but can inno way replace wild fish. Years of producing salmon in artificial conditionshave created a lesser fish, one that is hand-fed and not asadept at clearing natural barriers. When fish return to Clear Creek,for example, humans, rather than nature, choose which female fishwill procreate. Humans strip the eggs and mix them with sperm in abucket, before incubating them, securing them in troughs, andreleasing them to the wilds of the ocean. The result, says Troutt, is asimpler fish and a less diverse run.To keep pace with this new way of thinking, Clear Creek will nowcarefully combine some of its hatchery fish with wild salmon to createa more natural species in the runs it artificially propagates. Thesesalmon will depend even more on a healthy watershed to survive,from the summit of Mount Rainer to the depths of waterways.