What Is Hatchery Reform?

Hatchery Reform Project Website

what is hatchery reform? | lltk and hatchery reform | hatchery reform at our hatcheries

From 2000-2005, LLTK acted as the independent third party facilitator for the Puget Sound and Coastal Washington Hatchery Reform Project. LLTK maintains the website www.hatcheryreform.org as an archive of the project.

Hatchery reform is a systematic, science-driven approach to rethinking how to use hatcheries to achieve two goals:

• help recover wild salmon and steelhead populations; and
• provide sustainable fisheries.

Hatchery operations began in the Pacific Northwest more than 100 years ago, with the primary purpose of producing fish for harvest. But recent scientific findings have made it clear that hatchery operations contribute to the decline of wild salmon populations, requiring us to fundamentally change the way we think about hatcheries.

For example, a hatchery should be viewed not as a substitute for healthy spawning habitat, but as an extension of it—as a productive tributary of the river in which the hatchery is located. Hatchery fish spend the majority of their lives in the wild and—like their wild cousins—they need healthy streams, rivers, estuaries, and oceans. Hatchery reform and habitat restoration must go hand in hand in Puget Sound and coastal Washington, a place with more than 100 hatcheries and more than 150 years of habitat degradation.

Hatcheries are one of several tools available for recovering wild salmon and supporting sustainable fisheries. They should be used when they represent the most effective tool for achieving established goals for salmon populations. Hatchery reform means designing and operating hatchery programs in concert with the needs of wild salmon and steelhead populations.