The National Fish Hatchery System (NFHS) is comprised of a network of field stations located throughout the nation that work with tribal, local, and state governments, other federal agencies, and foreign nations to conserve fisheries. Since the inception of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 1871, fisheries conservation has figured paramount to people and economies. 

The NFHS has purview over fisheries in the Pacific Northwest to Gulf Coast tributaries of Florida, and points in between. Scientists with diverse specialties in ecology, statistics, botany, physiology, fish culture, microbiology, and veterinary medicine conserve America’s fisheries.

The NFHS has a hand in conserving rare imperiled species and common game fishes: Pacific salmon, native western trout, diminutive darters in the heartland, lake trout in the deep Great Lakes, and striped bass that ring the Gulf and Atlantic Seaboard. That’s only to name a few fishes. Plants, salamanders, insects, and freshwater mussels are also beneficiaries to the work conducted by scientists in the NFHS.

Visit our Publications to learn more about egg and fish distribution.