Friday August 12, 2022
Idaho News 6 —
Idaho Fish and Game has began the process of marking fish in their steelhead hatcheries.
Over the next 9 days, over one million steelhead will have their adipose fin cut off as they have reached the age to move from the hatchery to raceways.
The fish are moved into trailers where they are measured by size, then put into machines that take a picture of the fish and precisely cut the small fin off. Losing this fin causes no navigation issues and doesn’t harm the fish in any way.
“Our numbers of steelhead have declined in the state of Idaho due to migration issues, ocean conditions, so what these hatcheries do is they allow us to rear fish in a more controlled environment,” said Terry Thompson, Regional Communications manager for Idaho fish and game.
This process gives steelhead a 85% survival rate inside the hatchery as opposed to natural spawn fish that see a less than 20% survival rate in the wild.