Featured Species
Lahontan National Fish Hatchery raises the Pilot Peak strain Lahontan cutthroat trout. Annually, the hatchery stocks approximately 500,000 Pilot Peak Lahontan cutthroat trout into high priority conservation waters in Nevada and Eastern California.
The Pilot Peak strain Lahontan cutthroat trout represents the original lake form that evolved in ancient Lake Lahontan and existed in the Truckee, Tahoe and Walker Lake Basins. Once thought to be extinct, transplanted Lahontan cutthroat trout were found in the Pilot Peak Mountains along the Nevada/Utah border in the late 1970s. Utilizing genetics of museum mounts from 1872 to 1911 of fish known to be from the Truckee River Basin, it was determined that the Lahontan cutthroat trout in the Pilot Mountains were descendants of the original Truckee Basin Lahontan cutthroat trout.
Through years of careful genetic management and refining conservation broodstock broodstock
The reproductively mature adults in a population that breed (or spawn) and produce more individuals (offspring or progeny).
Learn more about broodstock strategies, the genetic legacy of the original lake form Lahontan cutthroat trout was secured at Lahontan National Fish Hatchery. The Lahontan National Fish Hatchery Complex began stocking Pilot Peak Lahontan cutthroat trout into Pyramid Lake in 2006, in collaboration with the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe. True to their genetic potential, the Pilot Peak strain in Pyramid Lake exhibits life history traits found in the original population such as large size, long life span, late at reaching sexual maturity and piscivory.