Development, Use and Advancement of a Responsible Approach to Using Hatcheries in Fisheries Management

By the late 1980’s, following a century of stocking marine fishes to augment fisheries, not a single peer-review journal article had been published on the effects or effectiveness of stocking fishes that spawn in seawater. But by two decades later, science had grown rapidly in the field of marine fisheries enhancement. This was stimulated in large part by emerging new marine fish culture and tag technologies, experience gained in salmonid fisheries enhancement, and augmented by the publication in AFS Symposium 15 of a prescription for a science-based and responsible approach. Here we present the genesis, evolution and heuristic value of the Responsible Approach to marine stock enhancement, and show how awareness of it has fostered gains in the science underlying use of hatcheries in fisheries management worldwide and accomplishments made by incorporating such principles into stocking programs.