Are farmed trout very different than wild trout?

Sometimes we hear that our “genetically superior” farmed trout can escape and outcompete wild fish, but that’s HAKE news.

Two reasons:

1. Government-led hatcheries release about 1 million rainbow trout in Ontario waters every year. And these trout are from nearly identical genetic strains as the trout we farm.

During our last interview with a provincial government geneticist, we learned that trout are a very “genetically plastic” species and they cannot tell any major differences between those in farms and those in the Ontario wild.

And furthermore, we also learned that the province’s data tracking is so wonky that they don’t even know how many are released each year. They told us it could lie anywhere between 600,000 to 1,000,000 trout released in a year.

2. There isn’t a “genetically superior” farmed trout. When we breed trout, we aren’t looking for the fastest growers or most aggressive ones.

We breed for overall resilience, specifically the ability to thrive in different temperatures and conditions.

We intentionally remove the top 10% fastest growers, as we have learned that we sacrifice their resilience when we only breed for that trait.

And, significant genetic changes in trout would take a very, very, very long time. Trout spawn at three years old, whereas you can go through eight generations of chickens in that time!

Escaped fish are very rare and we prevent it as much as possible through a long list of never-ending checks and tests.

Learn more about how many trout and other fish are stocked in Ontario waters every year.