I was reading a thread about hatchery fish spawning with wild fish. Why don't the HxW fish spawn successfully? The source of hatchery fish was originally wild fish and I was just wondering if there has been a change in the fish due to hatchery raising and what those changes have been? You can get as technical as you like I have a fair understanding of genetics but have never really studied fish. I guess that is going to change.

It's called domestication and the tendency for it to occur is VERY strong in salmonids held for 1 year or more in captivity.... even when they are only one geneartion removed from a genetically pure wild stock. It gets exponentially worse for each generation removed.

So as Todd said a wild broodstock hatchery program is far superior to a typical hatchery program, but from a return per spawner viewpoint, nothing can come close to the production of wild spawners.

MetalHead Ron,

A quick look at some of my notes brought this one to my attention...

"Relationship between natural productivity and the frequency of wild fish in mixed spawning populations of wild and hatchery steelhead (Oncorhynchus mykiss)"

Mark W. Chilcote
Can. J. Fish. Aquat. Sci./J. Can. Sci. Halieut. Aquat. 60(9): 1057-1067 (2003)

Look for other papers by Mark Chilcote, Biologis, ODFW, or from Bob Hooten, Biologist, BC Ministry of Fisheries. They've done a lot of groundbreaking studies the past decade.

When I have a chance to find the other papers, I'll post the citations. A lot of them, if not all of them, will be hard to find online...you may have to go to the UofW, of some other library that carries fisheries journals. If they are online, sometimes they're by subscription only.

Fish on...

Todd.