The Quest for the Golden Trout: Environmental Loss and America’s Iconic Fish

3 | Fish Factories Feed Lots

chapter three Fish Factories Feed Lots The production of ecologically viable individuals is not part of the hatchery equation because the production of large quantities of fish, rather than natural history, behavior and ecology, largely guides hatchery practices. ~ culum Brown and rachel day, 2002 68 Although it may be stupid to feel empathy for an animal that may itself be beyond reason, hatcheries are sad places for me. The preordained fate that awaits trout seems unfair. It is hard not to see these places as prisons with little for the fish to do but grow fat and long. Each tank contains uniformity of shape and size. Countless bodies clad in identical prison clothing march in a never-ending, undulating fitness program. Fin constantly touches fin among innumerable similarly aged brethren. Various segments of the hatchery pens resemble large cellblocks where each fish is destined to serve the same length term. Each detainee mirrors every other’s confinement. Trout with worn fins hover just above the cement floor waiting , always waiting, for that dark human silhouette that will appear and refill the automatic pellet feeders that supply life-giving nutrients. The lack of physical features within most hatcheries differs dramatically from the types of habitats fish encounter when they are released. As two conservation biologists from the University of Cambridge reported:“For the most part, hatchery environments are completely devoid of structure. They tend to comprise of a featureless, monotonic enclosure with no opportunity to escape from conspecifics [other trout] or display any other natural behavior . They bear no resemblance whatsoever to the fish’s natural environment and densities can be up to 100 times greater than those in nature.”1 Hatcheries contain countless masses sluggishly swimming in concrete pens with nothing to anticipate but the next food pellet dispersed by machine. They are protected from avian and terrestrial predators by tall fences and overhead wires. Hatchery fish are raised mostly to supply pleasure, and few trout will be used to fill human’s nutritional needs. These trout are a product, not a functioning member, of an ecosystem. When their sentence finally ends, the fish will be transported miles away by trucks waiting just outdoors and delivered to rivers that appear to have no bounds. As I saw on the Salmon River, many of these parolees cluster together and mill around as they take in their new exercise yard.A few of the clever ex-cons disperse—in case hatchery wardens decide to revoke these mass paroles. Each fish’s hundred shadows eventually disappear. One true silhouette remains, a shadow becoming the new dark friend that was previously lost amid hundreds of indistinguishable outlines on murky concrete floors. In all respects, it is alone for the first time in its life. Food does not drop as pellets from the heavens at timely intervals in rivers. It must be sought in the form of strange new morsels that float by. Fish Factories Feed Lots ~ 69 After a day or two, a growing sensation of hunger must become the fish’s one central focus. Eventually, a familiar silhouette appears above the water’s surface. Then, a tiny splash that reminds of countless pellet lunches. The shape of the meal is unfamiliar, but in this strange new world everything must be tasted to see if it is edible. Suddenly, the fish senses a new unpleasant metallic taste and feels a yank on its jaw. It fights using muscles that were never properly developed in the confined, barren walls of the hatchery run. Tattered fins cannot propel the fish to safety. An invisible force pulls the fish slowly and inevitably toward the surface. A net appears and the fish feels the full weight of gravity on its body. No longer a nurtured pet, the fish can finally look with unblinking eye into the face of its creator. The creator’s face is attached to a familiar silhouette that was previously known only in blurred form, a face that continuously watched this fish slowly grow from egg to fry to fingerling to prized possession. With luck, the fish will be admired and dropped back in a stream to repeat the horror at the end of another’s line. How many times a fish can fight this battle and live is anyone’s guess. If the fish survives long enough in the wild to endure the harsh conditions brought by winter ice, it will probably...