Fish hatchery facts for kids
A fish hatchery is a place for artificial breeding, hatching, and rearing through the early life stages of animals—finfish and shellfish in particular.
Hatcheries produce larval and juvenile fish, shellfish, and crustaceans, primarily to support the aquaculture industry where they are transferred to on-growing systems, such as fish farms, to reach harvest size.
Some species that are commonly raised in hatcheries include Pacific oysters, shrimp, Indian prawns, salmon, tilapia and scallops.
The value of global aquaculture farming is estimated to be US$98.4 billion in 2008 with China significantly dominating the market; however, the value of aquaculture hatchery and nursery production has yet to be estimated.
Additionally, hatcheries produce for small-scale domestic uses, which is particularly prevalent in South-East Asia or for conservation programmes. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have established a National Fish Hatchery System to support the conservation of native fish species.
Hatchery design
Hatchery designs are highly flexible and are tailored to the requirements of site, species produced, geographic location, funding and personal preferences. Many hatchery facilities are small and coupled to larger on-growing operations; others may produce juveniles solely for sale.
Very small-scale hatcheries supply families or communities particularly in south-east Asia. A small-scale hatchery unit consists of larval rearing tanks, filters, live food production tanks and a flow through water supply.
A commercial scale hatchery would contain a broodstock holding and spawning area, feed culture facility, larval culture area, juvenile culture area, pump facilities, laboratory, quarantine area, and offices and bathrooms.
Expense
Labour is generally the largest cost in hatchery production making up more that 50% of total costs.
Genetic issues
Hatchery facilities present three main problems in the field of genetics. The first is that maintenance of a small number of broodstock can cause inbreeding and potentially lead to inbreeding depression thus affecting the success of the facility.
Secondly, hatchery reared juveniles, even from a fairly large broodstock, can have greatly reduced genetic diversity compared to wild populations (the situation is comparable to the founder effect). Such fish that escape from farms or are released for restocking purposes may adversely affect wild population genetics and viability. This is of particular concern where escaped fish have been actively bred or are otherwise genetically modified.
The third key issue is that genetic modification of food items is highly undesirable for many people.
Images for kids
-
Assynt Salmon Hatchery, near Inchnadamph in the Scottish Highlands.
-
Manually stripping eggs
-
Juvenile salmon towards the end of their stay in a hatchery
.JPG)
