Salt Lake City —The Logan Fish Hatchery was acquired in 1928 and has been producing various fish species since then, including several native fish species that are threatened and endangered. Now, a new facility was recently completed that will allow the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources to produce additional warmwater fish species that will be stocked around the state.
Construction on the new facility began in 2024, and the first fish raised in the new 12,600-square-foot building were stocked last month. This new part of the Logan Fish Hatchery will specialize in raising cool and warmwater sportfish species, including channel catfish, walleye and wipers — a hybrid species that is a cross of a white bass and a striped bass.
“Our goal with this new facility is to provide a more controlled and consistent hatchery environment for raising warmwater sportfish species,” DWR Logan Fish Hatchery Manager Gary Howes said. “By upgrading infrastructure, we can better reduce disease risks, optimize fish growth and ensure a reliable and timely schedule for stocking high-quality fish in Utah’s diverse waterbodies. This aligns with our larger goals of ensuring healthy wildlife and fish populations in Utah.”
The new facility utilizes three recirculation aquaculture systems that more efficiently use the water and energy resources in the hatchery. Because the water temperature is adjustable in the new facility, it allows for optimal conditions for raising cool and warmwater species beyond the typical coldwater species — like trout — that are raised at other DWR hatcheries across the state.
“We realize that the world we live in is changing,” Howes said. “While designing this new facility, we weighed several factors, including continued population growth in Utah and changing angler preferences, as well as water availability, water quality and ongoing climate changes such as drought. The warmwater fish species raised at this new facility will help meet some of those needs and better adapt to changing conditions in Utah, as part of our 30-year fish production plan.”
Prior to the recent expansion, the Logan Fish Hatchery had been raising approximately 175,000 fish annually. The hatchery will continue to produce rainbow trout, cutthroat trout, June sucker, green sucker and woundfin. An additional 175,000 warmwater fish that are 2 inches or bigger will be raised annually in the new building, along with more than 2 million sac fry (recently hatched fish that still have attached yolk sacs).
“The Logan Fish Hatchery is unique from other state hatcheries in several ways,” Howes said. “It serves as an isolation hatchery, providing an important pathogen barrier by quarantining eggs and fish from out-of-state sources before they are cleared for transfer to our broodstock hatcheries. The facilities at this location also assist with innovation and research, including with fish diseases, evaluating fish strains and refining advanced fish culture techniques. This hatchery also plays a unique role in biodiversity, with some of the buildings dedicated to rearing several native species that are not produced at any other state facility. We are excited about the additional fishing opportunities this newest building will provide for anglers across Utah.”
