I'm going to step into it here.

A hatchery raised trout from parents have come from generations of hatchery raised trout are NOT the same as trout from wild parents. That is the very basis of the argument that hatcheries cannot replace wild salmon fisheries that have been and are threatened by dams on the Columbia River in Washington.

Hatchery raised fish provide recreational fishing but these fish are not the same as fish from wild stock that survived for eons in the wild. Science does not support the contention that hatchery raised fish from hatchery raised parents are the same as wild trout raised from wild parents.

http://www.dailyevergreen.com/news/a...7a43b2370.html

1. Research has shown that trout that are raised in hatcheries from wild parents and then planted into rivers have a higher survival rate than the trout raised in hatcheries from hatchery trout parents.

Wisconsin has a wild trout program that has demonstrated this fact.

http://www.littlejuniata.org/article.php?id=37


2. Stocking hatchery that then crossbreed with wild trout can weaken the wild trout genome and lead to less viable crossbreed of trout than the purebred wild fish.

"Abstract:

We have documented an early life survival advantage by naturalized populations of anad- romous rainbow trout Oncorhynchus my kiss over a more recently introduced hatchery population and outbreeding depression resulting from interbreeding between the two strains. .... Having an entire naturalized genome, not just a naturalized mother, was important for survival over the first winter. Naturalized offspring outperformed all others in survival to age 1+ and hybrids had reduced, but intermediate, survival relative to the two pure crosses. ..... Continued stocking of the hatchery fish may conflict with a management goal of sustaining the naturalized populations."

http://www.dartmouth.edu/~ark/images/stories/miller.pdf


3. Because of the weakening of crossbreeding of wild fish with stocked fish, since 2001 the state of Idaho has only stocked sterile fish into watersheds with populations of wild fish. They then studied whether the competition of these fish affected native populations of trout. They did not because they has a high mortality rate.

"The lack of population-level effects from stocking catchables was not surprising considering the high short-term mortality and the socially and physiologically naive behavior typically exhibited by hatchery catchables stocked in logic systems."

http://www.cfr.msstate.edu/students/...chable rbt.pdf


4. Hatchery trout are slower than wild trout. A logical conclusion would be that a hatchery raised trout on the end of the line can not fight as effectively as a wild trout of similar size.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWSivb-H0k0


http://www.opb.org/news/blog/ecotrop...or-wild-trout/


http://www.cbbulletin.com/405117.aspx


5. The late Robert Behnke, our leading trout researcher has written about the innate differences of wild and hatchery trout.

http://books.google.com/books?id=GL0...rvival&f=false

There is abundant research that demonstrates a hatchery fish is inferior to wild fish. A hatchery fish that survives and "acts" like a wild fish is a rare breed and is the best of the best of a hatchery fish populations. But it is still inferior to a wild fish in its genetic code; and in fact, studies I have cited show that it passes this inferiority on to its progeny.