About hatcheries and spawning channels

Hatcheries enhance salmon populations by carefully incubating, rearing and releasing select fish to co-migrate with wild populations. Spawning channels create high-quality habitat to allow salmon to spawn in a way that mimics their natural activities.

Hatcheries

Pacific salmon hatcheries play a key role in our efforts to:

• conserve vulnerable salmon stocks: producing salmon to support depleted or vulnerable stocks
• provide salmon for harvest opportunities: producing salmon to support Indigenous, recreational and commercial harvests
• support stock assessment programs: supporting domestic and international stock assessment programs to understand fish populations
• support communities: working with partners and volunteers on education and community involvement projects

Our hatcheries follow guidelines to ensure enhancement activities are done in a way that minimizes risk. We set objectives for each population that is being enhanced, and conduct activities in line with our policies, guidelines, standards and licensing requirements. If objectives aren’t being met, we adapt, change or eliminate activities.

Once enhancement is identified as an activity whose benefits outweigh potential risks, hatchery staff collect salmon eggs from local streams and lakes and fertilize them under carefully controlled conditions. Once the eggs have hatched, the juvenile fish are reared for various lengths of time before being released. At all stages of enhancement, strict biological protocols are followed.

Hatcheries in British Columbia are licensed under the Pacific Aquaculture Regulations and other relevant regulations such as water licences. Pacific salmon production is consulted on and approved through annual salmon integrated fisheries management planning processes.

Types of hatcheries

We support 3 types of hatcheries. Each facility supports different salmon populations with different objectives, but overall, we enhance the 5 different Pacific salmon species. The types of Pacific salmon enhancement hatcheries in the Pacific Region are:

• Major operational hatcheries: these are federally run hatcheries and spawning channels, and often include collaboration with local First Nations. These facilities are generally larger in scale than the other 2 hatchery categories.
• Community economic development program hatcheries (CEDP): these are facilities run with partners, such as Indigenous communities and conservation societies. Typically, these facilities are medium-scale.
• Public involvement program hatcheries (PIP): these are facilities that are typically run by community volunteers from Indigenous communities or stewardship groups, and we support them with modest financial investments and in-kind technical and biological support. These hatcheries are usually small-scale.

Spawning channels

We build spawning channels that create high-quality habitat to allow salmon to spawn in a way that mimics their natural activities.

Artificial spawning channels are built adjacent to salmon rivers, directing a controlled flow of water over gravel spawning beds. The rate of flow and water depth is set to create ideal spawning conditions. Spawning channels are carefully managed using the same policies, frameworks, guidelines and regulations as hatcheries. In the Pacific Region, salmon that hatch in artificial spawning channels are considered enhanced rather than wild. Learn more about spawning channels in B.C. and Yukon.