By Craig Springer/USFWS

Two words sum up the work of Saratoga National Fish Hatchery: toads and trout. Located in southeast Wyoming, the Saratoga facility has long been associated with cold water fish conservation. It was established in 1911, and has at various times had on station various species of trouts and chars.

Saratoga National Fish Hatchery was quite instrumental in moving forward the conservation status of the now-threatened greenback cutthroat trout. Hatchery scientists there specialize in creating brood stocks – they grow fertilized eggs they send where they are needed – and that’s exactly what they accomplished with what was then the rarest of trouts, the greenback.

Today, hatchery scientists maintain a brood stock of lake trout. But the fruits of their labors are felt well beyond the egg-hatching trays there in Wyoming. They maintain a brood stock of the Lewis Lake-strain of lake trout. These fishes are capsules of genetic material moved forward in time from another era – and that’s literally so. In the 1880s, lake trout from Lake Michigan were planted in Wyoming’s Lewis Lake for the express purpose of providing more fishing opportunity. Spreading non-native fishes is fraught with potential hazards and only done so with weighted thought by biologists today. But unknowingly, that transplant to Wyoming today is a literal seed stock for restoring a native lake trout fishery in Lake Michigan; those fish possess the genetic material originally found in Lake Michigan. In 2005, Saratoga National Fish Hatchery sent out 2.4 million lake trout eggs to Jordan River National Fish Hatchery in Michigan, where they were raised to a stocking size. Over the last decade, the Saratoga facility has contributed significantly to the 29 million yearling lake trout stocked in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron.

Two other trout brood stocks exist there. They hold the McConaughy-strain rainbow trout brood stock as a back-up for the Ennis National Fish Hatchery in Montana. In 2005, they produced over four million brown trout, distributed around the country to state fish and game agencies, and Indian tribes, mostly for recreational fishing and for research purposes, too.

Like the greenback cutthroat trout, Saratoga staff are plowing new ground in conservation. They are the first National Fish Hatchery to breed and raise an endangered amphibian, in this case, the endangered Wyoming toad – one of the most imperiled amphibians in North America. Its natural range is roughly a 30-mile radius around Laramie, Wyoming, but the investment in toad conservation is paying dividends. In 2005, fish biologists at the hatchery raised and released 2,450 tadpoles and 57 toadlets back into the wild. One of the release sites is the Bufford Ranch, where a private land owner has welcomed the toad’s return via a Safe Harbor agreement. The hatchery staff doesn’t work alone on toads; zoos around the country, and the Ecological Services Office in Cheyenne work closely with the toad toward its recovery.

Like toads and frogs around the world, the Wyoming toad is not immune to Chytrid fungus infections. Toads at the hatchery are carefully isolated from fishes in their own environment. Biologists using HACCP are careful not to spread tissues and water exposed to the fungus. Toward bettering the lot of the Wyoming toad, those released on the Bufford Ranch are free of the Chytrid fungus. And what happens to them in the wild with regard to fungus should lead to valuable information, not only for the species’ recovery, but also for Fish Health Center biologists as they learn more about the Chytrid fungus in the wild, and apply that to stave its spread.

Saratoga National Fish Hatchery presently has 85 toads on station, 25 of which are young of the year.

Lake trout from Saratoga National Fish Hatchery make their way into their natal Lake Michigan via a ride on the M/V Togue, a moniker derived from a colloquial name for the trout it delivers. The M/V Togue is operated by staff from the Jordan River National Fish Hatchery in Michigan. Click here

Lake trout provide a tremendous recreational fishery. They reach 70 pounds and have been wrangled from as deep as 200 feet. Click here

If you have questions about this article, email Craig_Springer@fws.gov

Links

Greenback Cutthroat Trout

Jordan River NFH

Ennis NFH

Hazard Analysis & Critical Control Point Planning