03-25-2010, 04:18 AM
That really does not make much sense to me either. Where did the hatchery fish originate? I would think it was from wilds in the first place since they did not just appear. The wilds were milked and then we ended up with hatchery fish and that is only identified by the clipped fin. If they spawn with wilds or hatchery, then their off spring will be wild. As you said, if they go to the ocean and back, they are wild. Also, they do not clip the fins on all hatchery. They leave some with fins so the wild population will rise. The only real problem with hatchery fish is after many years of using the same genetic hatchery fish to produce more hatchery fish, the genetic lines do become weak. Seems the best thing would be to reintroduce some wild genetics back into the hatchery line to strengthen it.
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