Pennsylvania Fish Hatcheries:
 An Economic Analysis
by
Eugene P. Macri Jr.
Aquatic and Environmental Scientist 

There appears to be a "no reality" void by fishermen when it comes to the production of trout.  Most seem to think that this process doesn't take much money and it doesn't produce much pollution.  Furthermore, the PFBC has hidden the real costs from the public and often from Fish Commissioners in my estimation (On Big Spring over 10,000 gallons of water per minute were being pumped up the hill to the hatchery. Can you imagine what the electricity costs today would be for this alone).  The cost of raising trout and transporting them with the associated energy costs alone makes this process "an endangered species."

Some people at the PFBC are still trying to tell everyone that people who closed the hatchery on Big Spring are against hatcheries and against stocked trout.  This is what we call "The White Truck Club" and it's detrimental to good fishery management.  This is the so called "bunker mentality" us against them...and that we are going to stop your kid from fishing.  This is further exacerbated when there is a deep hatred of fly anglers by the by certain people in certain state agencies because they were in the majority on Big Spring. This can be easily seen in the attempts of the PFBC to open up many of the fly waters to bait fishing and change many regulations as a response to what happened on Big Spring.

To put it bluntly at the present rates of energy costs, transportation, labor, maintenance, and the biological component (fish, food etc.) the present hatchery system in Pennsylvania is doomed! First realize this:  you need stocked trout to maintain a fishery program in the state.  Anyone who thinks just wild trout isn't realistic.  Next, there's nothing wrong with fishing for stocked trout and allowing people to keep some of the fish (however, with realistic creel limits; see Fred Johnson's Notes on this site). The economic interests in this help make fishing and hunting in Pennsylvania the number two over all money making industry.

However, hatchery trout should be produced with as little pollution as possible and in an energy efficient manner to keep costs down.  Under the present state of giant "flow through" hatcheries that the state uses they will not be able to continue their programs without sacrificing environmental integrity and escalating licences fees.  The present flow through hatchery system is "a dinosaur."

If this system is to survive there must be major changes.  The first thing to go is the idea that the PFBC can "paint" every stream with the same wide brush.  In other words why must every stream including streams that have a wild trout population be stocked. I would like to hear Austen and PFBC argue the fact that putting hatchery trout over wild populations in most streams doesn't do any damage! Here is an example of a workable approach that would solve many of the PFBC's problems:

• Have a tier system of streams.  Wild trout streams have restricted creel limits or catch and release. If the population in these stream meets certain criteria there is no stocking.  If they do stock only fingerlings below 3 inches are stocked or vibert boxes with eggs.  A wild trout is too valuable of a resource to be caught only once.
• Some wild streams will lie "fallow" for a season without any fishing to give populations time to recuperate.
• Some wild streams are designated nursery waters and no fishing is allowed since these streams often serve to allow populations to expand into the larger waters.
• Designate different variations in stocked streams including those that have holdover fish and those that don't. This would include some streams which are marginal and certain other types of waters.
• In these streams (both marginal and holdover but not any major reproduction) stock the larger hatchery fish for the public.
• Streams in rivers that show that in some sections wild trout and hatchery trout survive (some of these streams for instance have wild trout in one section while hatchery trout may inhabit another one, use only fingerling stockings).
• In some waters stock only certain species that will not harm the wild population (for instance, in some private waters that I work on that have wild strains of browns and rainbows, the stocking of both brook trout fingerlings and brook trout adults does not seem to have any negative effect on the wild populations).

This would be a start that would make sense and would also be ecologically sound. Furthermore, enormous amounts of money would be saved in transportation costs alone by not stocking these wild streams or by stocking just occasional fingerlings.  Now what about the hatcheries. Since the large trout production would be decreased this would dramatically save money.  Even more money could be save by converting parts of certain flow through hatcheries to recirculation.  The massive number of fingerlings and smaller trout that could be raised cheaply and thus stocked under these conditions would be staggering.  By going to combination of recirculation and flow through the PFBC would accomplish a number things including: reduction of pollution, lower over costs in fish production, transportation, labor and have an economically and ecologically sound program.

The public must be educated to the resources and the environmental conditions of hatcheries and fishing.  Some people in the legislature and the PFBC doesn't want to do this.  They think things are the same as they were in the 1953 video of the PFBC on this site.  They refuse to come into the modern era.