What We Do

The Saratoga hatchery currently provides 1.75 million Lewis Lake lake trout eggs to the Great Lakes restoration effort, and 2 million Plymouth Rock brown trout eggs to other Federal, state and tribal programs. The Hatchery maintains the back-up  broodstock broodstock
The reproductively mature adults in a population that breed (or spawn) and produce more individuals (offspring or progeny).

Learn more about broodstock
 for the Eagle Lake rainbow trout and provides Yellowstone cutthroat trout and Rainbow trout for the Wind River Reservation. The hatchery holds a refugium of the endangered Wyoming toad and produces tadpoles and adult toads for reintroduction into the wild. 

Our Services

Facilities

To meet trout production demands, the hatchery facilities include 37 raceways and 16 tanks that are fed by a series of springs and wells. Facilities also include a toad-rearing room for the endangered Wyoming toad. 

National Broodstock Program

A brood stock hatchery specializes in rearing fish to adult size, then taking the eggs from those fish, fertilizing the eggs with sperm, incubating the eggs through the fragile early stages, and shipping them to production hatcheries where they are hatched and the fish are raised to a size large enough for stocking.

As a result of the Saratoga National Fish Hatchery broodstock broodstock
The reproductively mature adults in a population that breed (or spawn) and produce more individuals (offspring or progeny).

Learn more about broodstock
program, genetically distinct strains of trout have been perpetuated, and the eggs provided to production hatcheries contribute to the multi-million-dollar economic impact of recreational fishing throughout the Nation. Excess and retired brood fish are also stocked in Wyoming waters to support additional recreational angling opportunities. Since 1992, Saratoga National Fish Hatchery has provided eggs to over 50 Federal, Tribal, and State Programs nationwide. 

Small orange fish eggs on a white background.

The National Broodstock Program was established in 1970 to support healthy sustainable fisheries in waterways across the country. Every year the National Broodstock Program provides about 60 million fish eggs that are hatched and raised by our partners to meet their conservation and management...

Our Projects and Research

Wyoming Toad

Saratoga National Fish Hatchery adopted a unique role in becoming the first hatchery in the National Fish Hatchery System to become involved in rearing endangered amphibians. The Wyoming toad was a common sight on areas of the Laramie Plains, Albany County, Wyoming, into the early 1970s but the populations crashed in the mid-1970s. The Wyoming toad was listed as endangered by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service in January 1984. Found only in southwestern Wyoming, the Wyoming toad is considered the most endangered amphibian in North America. The hatchery maintains a captive population for breeding, rearing, and refugia, and the offspring from this program will be used for reintroduction efforts. 

Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout

Saratoga National Fish Hatchery rears and stocks native Yellowstone cutthroat trout into several lowland lakes and high mountain wilderness lakes on the Wind River Reservation in a continuing effort to enhance and maintain this native trout species. Invasions by exotic trout species have greatly diminished the distribution and abundance of Yellowstone cutthroat trout, potentially threatening cutthroat trout persistence in its natural range of the Wind River drainage of Wyoming. Restoration efforts for native Yellowstone cutthroat trout on the Wind River Indian Reservation are only possible with a consistent, genetically pure, quality hatchery and rearing program.