New Research, New Hatchery
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The following article, which appeared in the Fall 2004 issue of the SAFS newsletter, details recent developments for the hatchery program.
A longstanding feature of the school’s teaching and research program has been the University of Washington Hatchery. The hatchery was established initially to maintain a salmon run for testing the effects of radioactivity on salmonid homing behavior. After this work ended, the hatchery mainly was used for long-term aqua-culture research—how to culture salmon and trout and improve the technology. Professor Lauren Donaldson was a key figure throughout the radiation and aquaculture programs, and gained recognition for his development of a fast-growing rainbow trout, which became known as the Donaldson “super” trout.
Left to right: Dave Rose, hatchery technician;
Jon Wittouck, hatchery manager;
and Kerry Naish, assistant professor,
in the renovated hatchery
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In 2000, the school decided to reassess the hatchery program to determine its current state and future directions. It formed a committee to examine both programmatic and physical attributes of the hatchery. The committee recommended renovating the hatchery’s indoor facilities to accommodate changing research needs. It noted that the existing facility wasn’t conducive to experiments that require replication. To address important questions in conservation, changes were clearly needed.
Once the need was defined, the committee focused on design. Committee member Kerry Naish, SAFS Assistant Professor, credits past hatchery manager Mark Tetrick: “He designed a ‘snap-and-click’ hatchery so just one person could easily switch different-sized tanks without changing any plumbing.” She also credited current hatchery manager Jon Wittouck and hatchery technician Dave Rose’s important contribution to the design and construction process and to their ongoing role in supporting hatchery research programs. Wittouck described their roles as “providing consultation on aquatic system design and construction, acquisition of system components, physiological requirements of research animals, and monitoring strategies.” In some cases, they also design and install the research systems.
The renovation was completed in early 2002. While the Donaldson rainbow trout runs that supported a selective breed- ing program were discontinued in the same year, the historical coho and chinook runs are still being maintained because the data they generate are still very valuable. “But,” Naish said, “now the hatchery is truly experimental: With no restoration or harvest goals for our salmon run, we can focus on studying persistent issues in hatchery cultivation, hatchery–wild fish interactions, the long-term fate of fish in hatcheries, and so forth.”
The hatchery renovation was designed especially to support long-term salmon research: Historically, comprehensive, longterm experiments to test whether hatchery releases pose a risk to wild fish, or whether hatcheries can be managed to reduce such risks have been limited. In particular, genetic experiments addressing these issues require rearing at least 3–4 generations. Because chinook salmon live 4–5 years, an experimental run must be maintained for 12–20 years. With the renovation, the facility now has the right staging environment to conduct such experiments.
Will taking 15–20 years to resolve an important conservation issue be “too little, too late”? Researchers like Naish are concerned about this, but they also believe the long-term experiments are absolutely necessary and urge conservation management of our fishery resources until we know more. There may be an interim model: Naish and her colleagues are looking into developing model systems using small fish, like medaka—which can produce multiple generations per year—to test principles and provide information while waiting for the long-term salmon data to be collected. Despite medaka being quite different from salmon, their genetic complexity is fairly similar to that for salmon when compared with other model systems.
The new facility has also proven useful for other SAFS faculty, including Jim Anderson, who is studying the effects of Columbia River dams on outmigrating salmon smolts. And Naish and collaborators at NOAA Fisheries are investigating two issues: how big or small wild and hatchery salmon populations can get before they experience loss of fitness due to inbreeding; and the possible long-term effects of genetic changes in hatchery fish due to inadvertent domestication. Naish added, “We are specifically testing the outcomes of management decisions, and seeking ways to avoid negative impacts, in an attempt to assist the Hatchery Reform Process currently underway in our state.”
Beyond salmon studies, the facility is designed to accommodate diverse research foci, including Russ Herwig’s study of exotic species introductions through ballast water, Chris Grue’s ecotoxicology research, Tom Quinn’s behavioral work, and Dave Beauchamp’s study of habitat usage and predator–prey behavior. Newly hired faculty are also expected to be active in the hatchery: For example, the new Western Regional Aquaculture Center director, Graham Young, a physiologist who focuses on salmon reproduction, and Claire Horner-Devine, a microbial ecologist interested in using replicated spaces for mesocosm research.
The flexibility of the new hatchery design will not only serve the aim of using the salmon run for long-term research, but will also meet the needs of researchers working on a broad range of organisms—from microbes to fish.
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