GENETIC DIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION IN COLUMBIA BASIN


SALMON AND STEELHEAD POPULATIONS





Craig Busack


Genetics Unit 


Washington Department of Fisheries


January 1991





	The Power Planning Council "stopped short of stating what priority 


should be given to genetic conservation in production planning to attain 


the doubling goal."





	"Sustainable increases in salmon and Steelhead productivity in the 


Columbia River Basin can only be achieved if the genetic resources 


required for all forms of production, present and future, are maintained 


in perpetuity."   (This was conclusion of the 20 geneticists at a 


workshop in 1991.)





	"Management of the genetic diversity of Columbia salmon and 


Steelhead populations is ultimately the responsibility of the numerous 


agencies operations or influencing the operation of production programs 


in the Basin."





	"... a suitable definition for genetic diversity would be simply 


genetic variation within and between breeding populations or groups of 


breeding populations."





	"For genetic conservation considerations, split allelic variation 


into two categories: single-locus and quantitative characters such as 


physiology, life history, etc."





	"Only Chinook and Steelhead still maintain spawning populations 


more or less throughout the area of the Basin open to anadromous fish.  


Pinks are now extinct or nearly so, chum now exist in small populations 


only below Bonneville Dam, and only a handful of sockeye populations 


remain.  Coho are extinct above Bonneville Dam except for the Hood River 


drainage in Oregon, and those that remain below Bonneville have been 


largely homogenized into two hatchery stocks."





	"Considered over all species then, Chinook and Steelhead would 


appear to account for the vast majority of the genetic diversity."





	"The resolution by the Production Principles Workshop 


unequivocally states that you cannot have all the meat you want, at 


least not for long, without the conservation of genetic resources."





	"Fisher's fundamental theorem of natural selection: 'rate of 


increase in fitness of any organism is equal to its genetic variance in 


fitness...'





	"...[genetic] diversity should be preserved, if not for its 


present value, then for its future value.  Once it is lost, it can't be 


recovered."





	"A basin-wide genetic conservation program is urgently needed."





	"Habitat changes (due to agriculture, hydroelectric development, 


timber harvest, and mining) harvest management policies, and hatchery 


programs have all played a role, separately and jointly, in eroding 


genetic diversity in the Basin."





	"Intensive, poorly regulated fisheries on the lower river severely 


depleted spring and summer Chinook between 1860 and 1900.  Mid-Columbia 


coho populations were driven to extinction by harvest policies in the 


1970's."








Busack, C. 1991





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