Tag Archives: Kitoi Bay Hatchery

Inside the operation that propped up Kodiak fishermen

It was low tide and most of the staff were sleeping, having finished an egg-take shift sometime before 7:00 a.m. The next shift would begin just before high tide, at 2:45 p.m. “We’ve done 200,000 fish already – that’s male and female. We’ve got about 135 million eggs right now,” said Wachter. Kodiak’s hatcheries, as well as those across the state, were originally set up to give fishermen a safety net during years in which wild stocks are low. Alaska’s Private Non-Profit Hatchery Program, however, is currently at the center of a political battle that could see restrictions placed on the number of hatchery-reared fish that are released each year. >click to read<11:48