Saving a System in Peril A Special Report on the National Fish Hatchery System

For more than a century, the National Fish Hatchery System (NFHS) has played a valuable role in providing cultured fish to benefit Americans. The Department of the Interior's U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) manages the system, consisting of 66 national fish hatcheries, seven fish technology centers, and nine fish health centers. Unfortunately, the NFHS has serious problems that have developed over several decades. Funding for hatchery operations and maintenance has declined by about 15 percent since 1992. NFHS facilities are old and outmoded. As a whole, the system suffers from a maintenance backlog of approximately $300 million. Twenty-five percent of hatchery personnel positions are vacant. To a troubling degree, these problems reflect an erosion of congressional and public support. In August 1999, the FWS asked the federally chartered Sport Fishing and Boating Partnership Council (SFBPC) to undertake that review. Following the FWS request, the SFBPC convened a special National Fish Hatchery Project Steering Committee to review the NFHS and develop recommendations regarding the system's roles, responsibilities and strategic funding policies. Overall, the steering committee believes the NFHS is uniquely positioned to influence and benefit state and tribal fishery programs, fulfill tribal trust responsibilities, and provide technical assistance to private aquaculture. Although the intent of the steering committee's report is to provide recommendations for future management of the NFHS, the steering committee concluded that without a national vision to define regional goals and objectives designed to fulfill overall FWS Fisheries Program strategies, the national hatchery system will continue to drift and will be in peril. It is essential that the FWS move aggressively to ensure that the NFHS and the products it produces fit within a publicly reviewed national strategy developed with state and tribal partners and stakeholders. The FWS must commit to implementing the plan it produces, and the FWS, the administration and Congress must be prepared to fund adequately the activities outlined by this plan. In addition to its observation regarding the need for a Fisheries Program national strategy, the steering committee's review resulted in 20 consensus based recommendations, presented without priority, in the programmatic categories of Scientific Excellence and Accountability, Mitigation, Recreation and Other Cooperative Programs, Threatened and Endangered Species Recovery, and Native Species Restoration. The steering committee's recommendations acknowledge the NFHS' vital roles in meeting federal mitigation obligations, restoring and maintaining native fisheries, and participating in the recovery of threatened and endangered aquatic species. The recommendations also urge the FWS and the NFHS to strengthen cooperative efforts with states, tribes and partners and improve accountability with Congress, stakeholders and the general public. A repeated theme in the report is the requirement to produce and use cultured products from the NFHS in conformance with the best possible science-based management principles and practices. The recommendations emphasize the crucial role fish technology centers, fish health centers and the national broodstock programs play in ensuring these principles and practices are followed. The report acknowledges the NFHS' role in providing fish to mitigate the impact of federal development activities and asks for legislative clarification of that responsibility and authority for full cost recovery for mitigation-related expenses from the parties responsible for development projects. The report also recommends that Congress clarify the role the NFHS should play in supporting recreational fishing objectives beyond the current benefits provided by mitigation and restoration activities.