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$40 Million Later, A Pioneering Plan To Boost Wild Fish Stocks Shows Little Success
by rd95

    "Was the ultimate goal scientific knowledge? No, it was to enhance the wild populations. But there's a lot of [scientific] value from what we gained, even if we didn't reach that ultimate goal," says Kathryn Johnson, an environmental scientist at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.

    Michael Rust, a science adviser for NOAA Fisheries Office of Aquaculture, says information gained from the program is in some ways as valuable as the fish.

    "With stock enhancement programs, you have the opportunity to tag a whole group of fish, put them in the ecosystem, see where they go, what they eat, and how they grow at different temperatures. The value is in the information you get. From NOAA's perspective, the enhancement is a bonus," says Rust.