Salmon hatcheries: Unsuccessful conservation, insufficient regulation, and poor animal welfare

The hatcheries take adult salmon from the wild, spawn them, then incubate and hatch their eggs.  The young are raised in captivity and released into rivers and streams. While this sounds reasonable, there are significant problems. Salmon raised in hatcheries have genetic differences, and do not develop in the same way as their wild cousins. They are less able to survive in the wild: they learn to be aggressive while feeding because of the concentrated nutritional value of pellets, but fail to cultivate appropriate fear of predators, and struggle to find breeding places as adults.

Hatchery-raised salmon also pose threats to wild salmon. Introducing even small differences in gene composition or expression into wild salmon populations can disrupt the delicate relationship with particular environments. There’s mounting evidence that despite mitigation efforts, hatcheries continue to dilute the genes of wild salmon in detrimental ways.  Salmon from hatcheries also compete for food and can bring disease to the habitats of wild salmon. Additionally, captive salmon are fed dry pellets which often include fish oil or fish meal, requiring wild caught fish – further depleting the food of wild salmon.

Recent statistics show that 126,906,208 fish and aquatic wildlife were released annually by U.S. national fish hatcheries, of which almost 120 million were sport fishes released to support recreational fisheries, with 20 million distributed to tribal lands. 70 million were threatened or endangered species raised in national fish hatcheries. Yet, despite this outlay of resources, not a single salmon has been freed of threat! In the Columbia River Basin alone, 106 runs of anadromous fish have become extinct: Wild fish populations have declined there by 98%.  Pacific salmon have disappeared from 40% of their historical rivers and streams in California, Oregon, Washington, and Idaho.

Why do hatcheries fail?

Why this abject failure? Because a conflict exists between hatcheries’ two goals – conservation and production for commercial and recreational purposes. Hatchery operations are often not aligned with conservation goals because of genetic manipulation and the constraints of captive behavior adaption. The endangerment and extinction levels prove that, more than a century later, hatcheries have failed to meet conservation goals. Indeed, recent studies prove they can actually threaten those populations. A review of 50 years of studies, “A global synthesis of peer-reviewed research on the effects of hatchery salmonids on wild salmonids”, found 83% reporting negative effects of hatcheries on wild fish populations, versus 3% reporting positive effects. Negative effects include reduced size, reduced genetic diversity (from interbreeding with hatchery fish), and reduced success at natural reproduction.