Downside To Breeding Fish In Captivity Shows Up Early

Fish hatcheries in the Pacific Northwest produce upward of five billion juvenile salmon, steelhead trout and other fish each year, introducing them to the wild. While the goal of most of these captive breeding efforts is to produce fish for harvesting, in recent years more programs have been developed with the idea of helping restore dwindling fish populations. Over many generations, fish bred in captivity are not as uA…aˆ?fituA‚A? genetically as wild fish and have less reproductive success (fewer offspring survive to adulthood). But a study by Hitoshi Araki, Becky Cooper and Michael S. Blouin of Oregon State University shows that the negative effects of captive breeding begin to show up even in the first few generations...