The worst upriver spring chinook hatcheries appear to be spending over a thousand dollars per harvested adult salmon. There is no government report, anywhere, which presents the cost hatcheries per returning adult salmon for all hatcheries in the Columbia River Basin. Professor Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington recently analyzed the effectiveness, in terms of returning adults, of hatcheries in the Columbia River Basin. Since hatcheries often produce more than one salmon stock, he divided his analysis between fall chinook production and spring chinook production. Professor Ray Hilborn's data, presented in Chapter 4, show the huge variation in the effectiveness of hatcheries.
Some hatcheries are consistently more effective.
For example, somebody should take a closer look at the Shuswap Hatchery on the Fraser River to see what its managers are doing right. Unfortunately, fishery managers have made no effort to distinguish the hatcheries that work from hatcheries that don't, and the most inefficient Snake River hatcheries remain in operation. Many Northwest salmon decisionmakers will admit, in private, that running failing hatcheries no longer makes economic sense. But they do nothing in public, because of the political imperative to produce salmon. The fishery managers have no incentive to make these hatcheries work.