Limestone springs support productive ecosystems and fisheries, yet aquaculture may modify or impair these ecosystems. We determined trout hatchery organic contribution to spring creek sediments and foodwebs with natural abundance stable isotope methods. Hatchery feed, waste, and trout were significantly enriched in delta(13)C relative to autotrophs and wild fish. Spring creek sediments were enr...

Due to concern about increasing mortality among 7 -day old chicks in a chicken hatchery the management arranged to screen all hatchery staff for salmonella excretion. The hatchery is part of a complex involving all stages of chicken meat production but is physically separate from the broiler units and chicken processing plant. The hatchery also has its own staff, there being no exchange of staf...

—Hatchery-reared salmon have been reported to be inferior to wild fish in some studies and competitively superior in others. We examined the influence of early rearing environment (hatchery versus natural) on the summer survival, movement, and growth of genetically similar juvenile coho salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch in streams. In each of 2 years, 5,000–10,000 fry from a hatchery cohort were plac...

We used genetic parentage analysis of 6200 potential parents and 5497 juvenile offspring to evaluate the relative reproductive success of hatchery and natural steelhead (Onchorhynchus mykiss) when spawning in the wild between 2008 and 2011 in the Wenatchee River, Washington. Hatchery fish originating from two prior generation hatchery parents had <20% of the reproductive success of natural orig...

Many sea turtle nesting colonies are in decline worldwide, and a common conservation practice maximizes hatchling production by translocating eggs from threatened nests to protective beach hatcheries. Typically, translocated eggs are ‘doomed’, or at risk of death due to tidal inundation, predation, or poaching. Sea turtles exhibit temperature-dependent sex determination. We determined how prima...

This study examined the growth, activity, metabolism and post-release survival of three groups of Florida largemouth bass Micropterus floridanus: wild-caught fish, hatchery fish reared according to standard practice (hatchery standard) and hatchery fish reared under reduced and unpredictable food provisioning (hatchery manipulated). Hatchery-standard fish differed from wild-caught fish in all m...

BACKGROUND Hatchery-induced selection and direct effects of the culture environment can both cause captively bred fish populations to survive at low rates and behave unnaturally in the wild. New approaches to fish rearing in conservation hatcheries seek to reduce hatchery-induced selection, maintain genetic resources, and improve the survival of released fish. METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS T...

Supplementation of wild salmonids with captive-bred fish is a common practice for both commercial and conservation purposes. However, evidence for lower fitness of captive-reared fish relative to wild fish has accumulated in recent years, diminishing the apparent effectiveness of supplementation as a management tool. To date, the mechanism(s) responsible for these fitness declines remain unknow...

Large numbers of hatchery salmon spawn in wild populations each year. Hatchery fish with multiple generations of hatchery ancestry often have heritably lower reproductive success than wild fish and may reduce the fitness of an entire population. Whether this reduced fitness also occurs for hatchery fish created with local- and predominantly wild-origin parents remains controversial. Here, we re...

Wild stocks of Pacific salmonids have experienced sharp declines in abundance over the past century. Consequently, billions of fish are released each year for enhancing abundance and sustaining fisheries. However, the beneficial role of this widely used management practice is highly debated since fitness decrease of hatchery-origin fish in the wild has been documented. Artificial selection in h...