Willard National Fish Hatchery

Willard National Fish Hatchery
5501B Cook-Underwood Road
Cook, WA 98605
509-538-2305
Hatchery Manager - Steve Wingert

Directions
The Willard hatchery is located five miles north of Highway 14 up the west end of the Cook-Underwood Road on the Little White Salmon River. Visitors are welcome from 7:30 am to 4:00 pm daily.

Hatchery History
The Willard National Fish Hatchery is part of the Little White Salmon/Willard National Fish Hatchery complex with administrative offices located at the Little White Salmon hatchery. It was built in 1952 and has been used primarily for raising coho salmon since the mid-1960s.

Coho salmon are adapted to the cold water of the Little White Salmon River. Willard NFH is currently an integral component of the Yakama Nation Mid-Columbia coho salmon reintroduction effort aimed at reestablishing self sustaining populations of coho salmon in the Wenatchee River Basin of north central Washington.

Coho salmon eggs, derived from a stock of fish returning to and spawned on the Wenatchee River in north central Washington, are transported to Willard during December at the eyed-up stage. They continue their incubation, are moved into indoor tanks, and then to outdoor raceways that are designed to provide shade to the growing young fish. When the fish are 16 months old they are loaded into tanker trucks and transferred back to the Wenatchee River for release by biologists from the Yakama Nation.

A majority of the Willard NFH project funding is supported by the Yakama Nation using Bonneville Power Administration funds. This is a cooperative effort by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the Yakama Nation to assist with the development of locally adapted, naturally spawning populations of fish in the Wenatchee River watershed. Due to NOAA-Fisheries Mitchell Act budget reductions, the Yakama Nation agreed to cover 60% of Willard NFH operational costs with remaining costs supplemented by Mitchell Act appropriations. The Willard National Fish Hatchery program also includes the production of spring Chinook salmon for release into the Little White Salmon River. Returning adult fish resulting from the Willard releases contribute to a popular sport and tribal fishery in Drano Lake. Future plans for Willard National Fish Hatchery include the construction of an effluent treatment system to convert the Willard nursery building into a quarantine facility. Funded by Public Utility District No. 2 of Grant County, this quarantine area will be essential for the early rearing of future Endangered White River spring Chinook captive broodstock collected as eggs from redds in the White River located in North Central Washington.

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