The sponsor's response does not provide convincing evidence that the radio-tagging approach will yield information important to addressing and solving a hatchery-wild interaction problem, if it exists. There are certainly enough hatchery-reared fish in the basin for the potential problem to exist. However, the design does not effectively get at the problem. The radio-telemetry approach works on such questions as fish passage, movements, etc. However, the telemetry approach with its small sample size does not appear to be the approach to answer the larger question of the degree of hatchery-wild interactions. It is an important question addressed by what appears to be the wrong (or an inadequate) technique. For this reason, the proposal is not fundable.

There may be some better ways to address the issue of hatchery-wild interactions: perhaps through genetic pedigree analysis. An approach might be to put in picket weirs in the fall in some tributaries and conduct a parentage analysis by genotyping adults of known pedigree (hatchery vs. wild) and the ensuing juvenile production.