A commentary on the role of hatcheries and stocking programs in salmon conservation and adapting ourselves to less-than-wild futures

Hatcheries and stocking programs serve a variety of objectives, including the conservation of salmon populations. Much attention has been given to the importance of genetic integrity and adaptive capacity of salmon stocks, particularly as they interact with hatchery-origin fish. Literature on hatchery and stocking programs has increasingly focused on genetic indicators of quality and success, with genetically ‘wild’ salmon valued over hatchery-influenced salmon. However, conservation in the Anthropocene is challenging paradigms of wildness and definitions of conservation success. For salmon populations that exist on the ragged edge of climate change where threats are unlikely to be remediated to the status of ecologies past, definitions of ‘wild’ and the role of conservation hatcheries and stocking becomes convoluted. If definitions of ‘wild’ or ‘natural’ salmon depend on salmon archetypes situated in historic ecologies, then what do salmon futures look like? In that context, we argue to expand from primarily genetic criteria for conservation stocking to additional criteria cognizant of hybrid ecosystems and future human-salmon relationships. We draw on the concept of adaptive epistemologies within the context of conservation-oriented hatchery and stocking programs to critically reflect on knowledge paradigms and values that underlie salmon conservation stocking efforts and the changing ecosystems in which they are situated. We critique ‘wild’ discourses rooted in western thought and make suggestions toward a reimagining of salmon conservation-via-hatchery in the Anthropocene that allows for expansive human-salmon futures. Critically, we conclude with warnings against using the arguments in this paper as social permission to use hatcheries as a conservation panacea.