film review - patagonia’s artifishal
January 22, 2020
In light of this shockingly misguided post by Florida Sportsman Magazine, the resulting conversation that ensued and the article we posted in last week’s WWRT about hatchery steelhead, I wanted to provide a quick review of Artifishal, a film produced by Patagonia that highlights the impact hatcheries and fish farms are having on wild trout, salmon and steelhead. It’s honestly a wild film that I recommend to anyone who eats or fishes for trout or salmon, or is interested in fishery conservation and the preservation of wild fish.
The film focuses mainly on the negative impacts that hatcheries and fish farms are having on wild fish populations. First, by introducing genetically similar farmed fish DNA to strains of wild fish that have evolved over millennia to be best suited for the specific rivers and oceans they were born and live in, we are devolving species, which is having varying impacts. In one example referenced, the average size of King Salmon returning to rivers to spawn in the Seattle and Vancouver area has fallen dramatically, which is having a profound impact on predators of the fish, including resident Orcas.
Second, it suggests, pointing to a study done in Montana with stocked trout and steelhead on the West Coast, that stocking fish to supplement wild populations may actually decrease populations of fish in targeted bodies of water. It might be counter-intuitive, but when you think about what we’re doing when we’re stocking bodies of water, it makes sense. Since those hatchery fish have not evolved specifically for that body of water, they are less likely to survive than those that have evolved there, so their population likely wanes quickly. Additionally, they represent unnatural competition for the wild fish, likely decreasing their chances of survival.
Stocking has driven down the average size of returning King Salmon in the Pacific Northwest. This fish came from Bristol Bay, one of the few remaining wild stocks of fish left.
Conversely, and while this may not have been the intended message, the film demonstrated how resilient fish can be, and from that, it portrays hope. It might not be the intended message, but the hope that I saw in it is that if we give fish (and nature) a chance, they can and will recover. Just years after the eruption of Mt. St Helens decimated the Toutle River, wild steelhead returned to spawn. Not only did they come back, but they came back in numbers that were higher than they had been prior to the eruption, a time that they had been stocked.
While stocking certain areas may help keep interest up or help return fish to waterways that no longer hold fish at all, protecting the wild stocks of all fish, whether it be brook trout, salmon, steelhead or redfish, and allowing nature to work her magic is the best way to recover, rebuild and sustain healthy stocks. We can’t rely on our ‘fixes’ to get back to where we need to be, we need to respect and protect the wildness that has allowed fish to thrive where they do, and manage accordingly. If we always believe we can ‘fix’ it later or keep populations sustainable by supplementing, we’ll never manage effectively, and, instead will likely set species up for disaster by reducing genetic diversity and devolving them.