ten fish hatcheries

Overview. Coleman National Fish Hatchery, located in Anderson, California, is the largest salmon hatchery in the contiguous 48 US states. Imagine feeding 842 metric tons of fish food per year!

70 National Fish Hatcheries

Hatcheries have operated in Washington since 1895, where there are currently 83 state run, 51 tribal, and 12 federal in the state. California, Alaska and Oregon have similar systems.

While originally derived from wild populations, years of culturing under artificial conditions have resulted in adaptations and changes to hatchery reared fish. For example, hatchery fish rely on hand-feeding, where wild fish must hunt for food.

Hatcheries produce larval and juvenile fish, shellfish, and crustaceans, primarily to support the aquaculture industry where they are transferred to on-growing systems, such as fish farms, to reach harvest size.

Hatcheries can help stabilize populations, allowing fishing operations to continue, but only if they produce fish whose offspring can thrive in the wild. The steelhead that best adapted to hatcheries did worst, in terms of reproductive success, once they were released into the wild.

A fish is any of a large group of cold-blooded, finned, aquatic vertebrates that respire by passing oxygenated water over gills. And from this definition, it is easy to see why so many animals are called fishes.

Sea stars, commonly called, “starfish,” are not fish. Sea stars live underwater, but that is where their resemblance to fish ends. They do not have gills, scales, or fins.

And most people know that lampreys, sharks, rays, eels, seahorses, and other strange-looking aquatic creatures are fishes, while shellfish, cuttlefish, starfish, crayfish, and jellyfish (despite their names) are not fishes.

The coelacanth

Giant tortoises, for example, can live more than 100 years, while bowhead whales can reach 200 years of age.