Jackson National Fish Hatchery is a National fish hatchery in Jackson, Wyoming. The hatchery is run by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The hatchery is physically located on the National Elk Refuge, a protected feeding ground for elk that winter in the Jackson Hole valley. The fish hatchery produces fish for a 18,000-square-mile (47,000 km2) distribution area in Wyoming and Idaho. [1]
The Jackson National Fish Hatchery rears one species of fish: the Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat trout (Oncoryhnchus clarki behnkei). [2]
Wyoming is a landlocked state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It borders Montana to the north and northwest, South Dakota and Nebraska to the east, Idaho to the west, Utah to the southwest, and Colorado to the south. With a population of 576,851 in 2020, Wyoming is the least populous state despite being the 10th largest by area, with the second-lowest population density after Alaska. The state capital and most populous city is Cheyenne, which had a population of 65,132 in 2020.
Yellowstone National Park is a national park of the United States located in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress through the Yellowstone National Park Protection Act and signed into law by President Ulysses S. Grant on March 1, 1872. Yellowstone was the first national park in the U.S. and is also widely held to be the first national park in the world. The park is known for its wildlife and its many geothermal features, especially the Old Faithful geyser, one of its most popular. While it represents many types of biomes, the subalpine forest is the most abundant. It is part of the South Central Rockies forests ecoregion.
The National Fish Hatchery System (NFHS) was established by the U.S. Congress in 1871 through the creation of a U.S. Commissioner for Fish and Fisheries. This system of fish hatcheries is now administered by the Fisheries Program of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service), an agency within the United States Department of the Interior.
The rainbow trout is a species of trout native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean in North America and Asia. The steelhead is an anadromous (sea-run) form of the coastal rainbow trout(O. m. irideus) or Columbia River redband trout (O. m. gairdneri) that usually returns to freshwater to spawn after living two to three years in the ocean. Freshwater forms that have been introduced into the Great Lakes and migrate into tributaries to spawn are also called steelhead.
The cutthroat trout is a group of four fish species of the family Salmonidae native to cold-water tributaries of the Pacific Ocean, Rocky Mountains, and Great Basin in North America. These four species are the Coastal, Westslope, Lahontan, and the Rocky Mountain. As a member of the genus Oncorhynchus, it is in the Pacific trout group, which includes the widely distributed rainbow trout. Cutthroat trout are popular gamefish, especially among anglers who enjoy fly fishing. The common name "cutthroat" refers to the distinctive red coloration on the underside of the lower jaw. The specific name clarkii was given to honor explorer William Clark, coleader of the Lewis and Clark Expedition.
Wichita Mountains Wildlife Refuge, located in southwestern Oklahoma near Lawton, has protected unique wildlife habitats since 1901 and is the oldest managed wildlife facility in the United States Fish and Wildlife Service system. The refuge's location in the geologically unique Wichita Mountains and its areas of undisturbed mixed grass prairie make it an important conservation area. The Wichita Mountains are approximately 500 million years old. Measuring about 59,020 acres (238.8 km2), the refuge hosts a great diversity of species: 806 plant species, 240 species of birds, 36 fish, and 64 reptiles and amphibians are present.
The National Elk Refuge is a Wildlife Refuge located in Jackson Hole in the U.S. state of Wyoming. It was created in 1912 to protect habitat and provide sanctuary for one of the largest elk herds. With a total of 24,700 acres (10,000 ha), the refuge borders the town of Jackson, Wyoming, on the southwest, Bridger-Teton National Forest on the east and Grand Teton National Park on the north. It is home to an average of 7,500 elk each winter. The refuge is managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
The Wyoming toad, also known commonly as Baxter's toad, is a species of toad in the family Bufonidae. The Wyoming toad is an extremely rare amphibian that exists only in captivity and within Mortenson Lake National Wildlife Refuge in Wyoming in the United States. The Wyoming toad was listed as an endangered species in 1984, and listed as extinct in the wild since 1991. As with black-footed ferrets at the Tom Thorne and Beth Williams Wildlife Research Center at Sybille in Wheatland, Wyoming, the effort to save the Wyoming toad has been a cooperative effort among state and federal agencies and private landowners. The Wyoming toad was common from the 1950s through the early 1970s, but its distribution was limited to the Laramie Basin in Albany County. The population crashed around 1975 and was extremely low by 1980. The Wyoming toad was federally listed as endangered in January 1984. To prevent extinction, a captive-breeding program began in 1989 at the Thorne Williams Unit that produced enough offspring in its first few years to supply seven zoos, and in 1998 the Saratoga National Fish Hatchery received captive-breeding stock. Nearly 46,000 offspring were produced at the Thorne Williams Unit from 1995 until 2006, when the remaining captive stock was moved to the Red Buttes Environmental Biology Laboratory south of Laramie, and then released back into the wild. Before the sharp declines occurred, this toad had been originally classified as Bufo hemiophrys baxteri, a subspecies of the Canadian toad, by Kenneth Raymond Porter in 1968.
The Metolius River is a tributary of the Deschutes River in Central Oregon, United States. The river flows north from springs near Black Butte, then turns sharply east, descending through a series of gorges before ending in the western end of Lake Billy Chinook. The unincorporated community of Camp Sherman lies astride the southern end of the river. The name of the river comes from the Warm Springs or Sahaptin word mitula, meaning white salmon and referring to a light colored Chinook salmon and not a whitefish.
The elk, or wapiti, is the second largest species within the deer family, Cervidae, and one of the largest terrestrial mammals in its native range of North America and Central and East Asia. The word "elk" originally referred to the European variety of the moose, Alces alces, but was transferred to Cervus canadensis by North American colonists.
The National Museum of Wildlife Art (NMWA) is a museum located in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, United States that preserves and exhibits wildlife art. The 51,000 square foot building with its Idaho quartzite façade was inspired by the ruins of Slains Castle in Aberdeenshire, Scotland and echoes the hillside behind the facility. Located on a bluff called East Gros Ventre Butte in the midst of a real wildlife habitat, the institution overlooks the National Elk Refuge and is situated 2.5 miles north of the town of Jackson. The core of the collections reflects traditional and contemporary realism. The museum's centerpiece is a collection of works by Carl Rungius (1869–1959) and Bob Kuhn (1920–2007). In addition to 14 galleries, the museum has a sculpture trail, museum shop, restaurant, children's discovery gallery, and library. More than 80,000 people visit every year, and over 10,000 children visit the museum each year, often as part of their school curricula. The Museum is a nonprofit.
The Miller Cabin complex consists of three buildings that were the residence of Robert A. Miller, the first superintendent of Teton National Monument. A house, a barn and a cabin built by the U.S. Forest Service are included. The property was eventually transferred to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in what became the National Elk Refuge. The buildings are a component of the closely related Grace and Robert Miller Ranch.
The history of wolves in Yellowstone includes the extirpation, absence and reintroduction of wild populations of the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park and the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem. When the park was created in 1872, wolf populations were already in decline in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. The creation of the national park did not provide protection for wolves or other predators, and government predator control programs in the first decades of the 1900s essentially helped eliminate the gray wolf from Yellowstone. The last wolves were killed in Yellowstone in 1926. After that, sporadic reports of wolves still occurred, but scientists confirmed in the mid-1900s that sustainable gray wolf populations had been extirpated and were absent from Yellowstone as well as 48 states.
White Sulphur Springs National Fish Hatchery is a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service facility located along the historic Midland Trail in the Allegheny Highlands of southeast West Virginia. Established in 1900 or 1902 to produce fish for the American public, the fish hatchery became part of the National Broadstock Program in 1976. In 1995, a freshwater mussel conservation program was added.
The ecology of the Rocky Mountains is diverse due to the effects of a variety of environmental factors. The Rocky Mountains are the major mountain range in western North America, running from the far north of British Columbia in Canada to New Mexico in the southwestern United States, climbing from the Great Plains at or below 1,800 feet (550 m) to peaks of over 14,000 feet (4,300 m). Temperature and rainfall varies greatly also and thus the Rockies are home to a mixture of habitats including the alpine, subalpine and boreal habitats of the Northern Rocky Mountains in British Columbia and Alberta, the coniferous forests of Montana and Idaho, the wetlands and prairie where the Rockies meet the plains, a different mix of conifers on the Yellowstone Plateau in Wyoming, the montane forests of Utah, and in the high Rockies of Colorado and New Mexico, and finally the alpine tundra of the highest elevations.
The South Central Rockies forests is a temperate coniferous forest ecoregion of the United States located mainly in Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana. It has a considerably drier climate than the North Central Rockies forest.
The Bozeman National Fish Hatchery, now known as Bozeman Fish Technology Center, is located about 4 miles (6.4 km) northeast of Bozeman, Montana, at the entrance to Bridger Canyon. There is also a National Fish Health Center on the southwest side of Bozeman, near Montana State University, about 7 miles (11 km) away from the Fish Technology Center. Fish Technology Centers work with a wide variety of public and private partners to improve and conserve aquatic resources. Both the Fish Technology Center and the Fish Health Center are part of the National Fish Hatchery System, operated by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. There are seven Fish Technology Centers and nine Fish Health Centers in the United States. The Bozeman hatchery is the fourth oldest National Fish Hatchery. The hatchery was named to the National Register of Historic Places on January 6, 1983.
The D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery and Archives, also known as the Spearfish Fisheries Center or Spearfish Fisheries Complex and formerly known as the Spearfish National Fish Hatchery, is one of 70 fish hatcheries that were opened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service as part of the National Fish Hatchery System. The hatchery was established near Spearfish, South Dakota in 1896, with the purpose of introducing and establishing populations of trout in the Black Hills of South Dakota and Wyoming. It is one of the oldest fish hatcheries in the United States and is the second-oldest in the American West. The hatchery spawns and releases about 20,000 to 30,000 rainbow trout each year. The hatchery doubles as a fisheries archive with the purpose of preserving records and early historical artifacts. It is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Saratoga National Fish Hatchery is part of the National Fish Hatchery System operated by the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. It is located northeast of Saratoga, Wyoming and, along with the Jackson National Fish Hatchery, is one of two National fish hatcheries operating in Wyoming. Saratoga NHF is primarily a broodstock hatchery; it maintains several healthy adults to produce sperm and eggs and distributes fertilized eggs to production hatcheries throughout the country to be hatched and grown to stockable sizes. It is also one of several organizations to establish a program for breeding Wyoming toads.
Many animal migration patterns are still intact in the greater Jackson area due to the large quantity of protected land. Large animals such as elk, mule deer, and pronghorn have separate winter and summer habitats and are moving in the spring and fall. Elk, moose, and other large animals also converge in the low-lying areas around Jackson during the winter months to escape deep snow at higher elevations. All of this movement increases the likelihood of wildlife-vehicle collisions on roads.
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