Fish Hatchery

a type of fish farm that has one or more bodies of water for the spawning and rearing of the fry of semimigratory fishes (carp, European bream, pike perch). Fish hatcheries are set up on commercial bodies of water (in river deltas or reservoirs) in order to systematically fill them with fish fry when natural spawning is hampered or curtailed. The fry are reared up to the migration stage (when, under natural conditions, they migrate to feeding areas) and released in rivers. The rearing period lasts from 1½ to two months. In the USSR there are fish hatcheries in the deltas of the Volga, Don, Kuban, and Kura rivers, as well as in the Tsimlianskoe and other reservoirs. Hundreds of millions of fry of valuable commercial fishes are annually released in rivers.

an enterprise engaged in incubating the roe and raising the fry of valuable types of fish. Fish hatcheries have a number of special facilities. There are ponds for keeping the parent fish until maturation of the sexual products. In addition to the hatchery equipment and incubating units, there are tanks and ponds for raising the young carp, sturgeon, salmon, and herbivorous fishes (amur, silver carp). The young carp and other pond fishes are raised on pond farms; the young of certain commercial fishes, such as salmon and sturgeon, are released into natural bodies of water.

In 1973 the USSR had 128 fish hatcheries, located in the basin of the Barents Sea, the White Sea, the Caspian Sea, the Sea of Azov, the Black Sea, and the Pacific Ocean. That year the hatcheries produced approximately 10 billion young fish for subsequent raising in ponds and natural bodies of water. There are large networks of fish hatcheries in all fish-raising regions of the world.