Alaska has a very extensive program in this regard. Some of the facilities are run by private non-profit community organizations that will own a series of pink and chum salmon hatcheries. They are very aggressively expanding production in those two species, to the point where, in much of their fishery—in Prince William Sound, for example, and in southeast Alaska—probably upwards of 50% of the pink salmon and a quarter of the chum salmon come from those facilities. They're very successful and very productive.
We could do a similar thing in British Columbia. The government has not allowed any people to get involved in the non-profit hatchery business in B.C. They've kept the salmon enhancement program to be 100%.... In fact, I spent five of my years in the government actually working as director of planning for the salmonid enhancement program, so I know about this extensively. A lot of groups wanted to get in, but the government said no.
One of the reasons was that they were concerned about the impacts of mixed-stock fisheries on enhanced fish and wild fish in B.C. In addition, the program in B.C. has really focused on being a rehabilitative program and a supplemental program, mainly for chinook and coho. We have not really taken any opportunity to expand production in pink and chum, which are there and could assist us in improving the.... I think there are spots where we could do it and where there wouldn't be impacts on wild populations.