A toolbox for survival: California DFW and DWR diversify hatchery release strategies
October 15, 2025
By Gordon Feller/Hatchery International
In an unusual move for a state government agency, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW) is partnering with both the powerful California Department of Water Resources (DWR) and the fishing industry. Their joint aim is to diversify the strategies used during salmon hatchery release.
To understand the underlying rationale for this new partnership, we spoke with Jay Rowan, CDFW’s Chief of Fisheries Branch. He and his organization have known for some time that one of the main limiting factors of fall run Chinook Salmon in the Central Valley, particularly in drought years, “is poor egg to fry survival due to warm water temperatures below several of the major CV reservoirs during the first several weeks of spawning and incubation. We predict as the climate continues to warm, these warm water conditions will become more frequent. One of the goals of these pilot studies is to determine if we can use unfed fry from the hatchery to supplement natural origin production and get those fish return to the natural spawning grounds as adults to spawn naturally when we have good water years”.
Rowan points out that, as fry, the fish are too small to use the standard Coded Wire Tag and adipose fin clip for future monitoring. Thus, “the second goal of these pilot studies is to determine if genetics based Parental Based Tagging (PBT) can be implemented and utilized to monitor these fish at a scale and on a timeline that will allow the data to be used in the annual Ocean and Inland salmon season setting process at the Pacific Fisheries Management Council and the Fish and Game Commission.
As for next steps, Rowan and CDFW expect to start seeing “adults coming back from the first fry release as 3 year olds this year. We plan to continue the study and monitor for returning Adults for at least three full years before we make any determinations for the future.”
Regardless of the results of the fry releases, CDFW’s plan is “to continue expanding the PBT program as funding allows which will help us monitor above dam reintroduction experimental projects, as well as providing additional genetic information on natural origin fish.”
We asked James Stone for another perspective on this. He serves as the President of Nor-Cal Guides and Sportsmen’s Association (NCGASA). His organization represents hundreds of professional fishing guides along the California rivers and lakes. They also represent thousands of recreational angler that have an interest in Chinook salmon and the future of catching them for sport and for harvest for food.
“The advancements in technology through parent base tagging allow us to release fish more timely with the correct environmental conditions,” said Stone. “Currently, many times when the environmental conditions are correct the hatchery is backlogged with tagging requirements through code wires or also add a post fin clipping fish for identification through monitoring processes which delays the release of the fish in river at the correct time. By moving to a parent base tagging at all current Hatchery and eventually a new Hatchery on the Sacramento. It will allow diversification of release strategies and correct release timing to ensure juvenile survival and out migration.”
NCGASA supports increasing hatchery production numbers and mitigating for the loss of habitat above and below all of the facilities in California’s Central Valley.
Scott Artis serves as Executive Director of the Golden State Salmon Association, a state-wide organization in California. He thinks that “this is about the survival of salmon, fishing families, thousands of fishing jobs and entire coastal towns and river communities.”
“I applaud the California Department of Fish and Wildlife’s implementation of diversified release strategies and the hard work of the incredible hatchery staff. With yet another year of low salmon numbers, it’s imperative that we take a page from the survival strategies of salmon. They don’t put all their eggs in one basket so we shouldn’t be doing so either in terms of releases,” Artis added.
Artis concludes that “fry releases, parental-based tagging, net pens, and trucking smolts down river or directly to the San Francisco Bay is filling the salmon recovery toolbox with the proper tools to respond to varied river conditions. Having a variety of release tools at the ready enables hatchery managers to respond appropriately to current river flow and temperature conditions that helps maximize juvenile survival. And that means more adult returns for a healthier population and fishing economy.”
To understand more about the rationale behind this important initiative, we also spoke with Mike Aughney, vice chair of the Golden State Salmon Association. His view is that “some of the biggest challenges salmon face are water diversions during their outmigration. The federal and state pumps entrain far too many baby salmon both of hatchery and natural origin. If the state wishes to see higher hatchery successes, they need to reduce the amount of water being diverted. Even just a week of reduced pumping during peak outmigration could be very successful.” The typical peak migration is during the spring snow melt or April to June.
Aughney and his colleagues think that the other big issue is dewatering redds and flushing lethally warm flows over the spawning grounds: “The number one reason the season has been closed the past two years is BOR killed over 95% (USFW own numbers) of natural fish on the upper Sac in 2020 and 2021. So, for hatchery fish to survive outmigration they need cold water and flow rates that ensure they can make the journey. Otherwise, those fish would all need to be trucked”.
The knowledge that salmon survival rates are linked to timing of release is not new. Quinsam, Qualicum and Robertson Creek hatcheries in Canada’s Province of British Columbia have been experimenting with different timing and release/size issues for at least 20 years. Things such as matching the releases with the zooplankton blooms, size of smolts/fry, and studying the homing into the releases by predators, especially dogfish and seals. Here is an early report on what the hatcheries were investigating in the 1980s.
One notable study is worth mentioning here, “Report Card on Recovery: Reviews Assess 28 Salmon and Steelhead Species Returning to West Coast Rivers,” is a research report from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Each of the following practices under focus in this initiative are all considered to be important:
- Timing: Releasing fish when food is abundant in the ocean or when it reduces competition with wild salmon
- Weight: Releasing heavier fish, which have higher survival rates
- Location: Releasing fish into historical spawning tributaries
- Release method: Releasing fish volitionally, allowing them to swim into the river when they are ready, or forcing them out on a predetermined date
- Seapens: Holding fish in a net pen in the ocean to help them adjust to marine conditions before release
- Diversification: Releasing fish at different life stages to mimic natural systems
