A Review of Semi-Natural Rearing Strategies for Increasing Ocean Ranched and Stocked Fish Survival

Cultured fish released into the wild often lack the experience required to thrive in complex physical environments, successfully hunt elusive prey, and avoid predators.  Providing cultured fish with some experience with the natural environment prior to release has been proposed as a tool to increase their post-release survival.  Over the last 25 years many studies have been conducted evaluating this concept.  Training fish to hunt by providing them live feeds, exposing them to limited predation, and rearing fish in a more natural environment have all been shown to improve behavioral responses in laboratory settings and sometimes survival in the wild.  This presentation will review this research on semi-natural culture strategies to determine its effectiveness for increasing the post-release survival of ocean ranched fish and fish stocked into natural freshwater habitats.  This literature review will focus on examining the work conducted since 2000 as an update to the reviews we conducted in 1995 and 2003.