Yesterday we visited the Jackson National Fish Hatchery which is run by the US Fish and Wildlife service. We took a tour of the facility and learned a lot about the Snake River cutthroat trout that they’re raising. The facility artificially spawns the trout and cares for the eggs until they hatch. The eggs are very small, orange, and have a black dot that is the fish’s eyes. The eggs are put in an incubator for 3 weeks until they hatch and once the eggs have hatched, the trout are moved into a larger tank where about 6,000 fish are kept. They’re raised in the tank until it becomes overcrowded, which is a problem because it stresses out the fish. They are then moved into the raceways where about 25,000 fish are kept. They raise the fish for about a year and a half. At this point the trout are about 8in long and are ready to be released. The hatchery releases them into the Palisades Reservoir, which leads upstream into the Snake River. The Jackson National Fish Hatchery adds these trout into the Reservoir and therefore the Snake River as part of a repopulation effort. According to Mike, our guide, a dam was built in the 1950’s at the reservoir which disrupted the spawning area of the trout. The hatchery was created in order to make up for the loss of the spawning area.