MANTUA – A new state-of-the-art Division of Wildlife Resources fish hatchery in Mantua opened to the media on Wednesday, Feb. 19.
Jared Smith gave a tour and answered questions about the estimated $5 million new facility. A large part of the money to build it came from fishing license sales.
The Mantua Fish Hatchery first opened as a private facility in 1910 as an outdoor hatchery.
Division of Wildlife Resources Mantua hatchery has large trout used as brood stock in the new egg harvesting facility Wednesday Feb. 19, 2024.
“It was later purchased by the DWR in 1970, and they built a building in 1975,” Smith said. “The new facility opened in September of 2024.”
Due to its age, the hatchery has undergone some upgrades over the years, and now, a new egg production facility has opened. It has fish freshly hatched form eggs to large brood stock ready to leave the facility.
The water for raising the fish comes from a nearby spring but it is pumped into the raceways and harmful gasses are extracted to help the trout stay healthy.
“We go to great lengths to make sure everything is bio secure,” he said. “The feed is kept at the temperature and is packed with vitamins.”
The Mantua Fish Hatchery produces over 6 million fertilized trout eggs per year, about 30 percent of the total trout eggs produced by the DWR.
The eggs are sterilized before they leave the facility and produce triploid or sterile trout.
Laura Seitz from the Deseret News shoots photos of the fingerling trout in one of the raceways at the new Mantua Fish Hatchery on Wednesday Feb. 19, 2024.
“Rainbow trout is not natural to Utah, it is a west coast fish,” Smith said. “They are easy to catch and do well in Utah.”
These trout eggs are then transported to other DWR fish hatcheries across the state, where they grow into fish that are later stocked into hundreds of Utah ponds, reservoirs and rivers.
“We also raise Bonneville Cutthroat,” he said. “The brood stock are put into community ponds when we are done with them.”
Some of the trout eggs are used for educational purposes.
The media gathers in the room where eggs are incubated at the new Mantua Fish Hatchery on Wednesday Feb. 19, 2024.
“We just gave out some eggs for Trout in the Classroom earlier his week,” Smith said. “That is a good program.”
Smith was raised in Mantua; his father Kirk was the chief biologist and leader of the facility for 35 years.
He retired earlier this year. The Mantua Fish Hatchery has thee fulltime employees.
“It has come full circle for me,” Smith said. “I started working in the Logan Fish Experiment Station. Then I went to Wyoming and worked there for a while.”
He later went to work at Lake Powell and then came to work here.
To enhance fishing and boost native fish populations, the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources stocks a variety of fish species throughout Utah every year.
Over 12.8 million fish were stocked into 722 waterbodies across the state in 2024.
DWR estimated they stocked 12,831,218 fish with a combined total of 1,238,903 pounds were put in the waters of Utah in 2024.
The state agency increased what they stocked in 2023 by 10.6 million fish.
As a historical prospective DWR said stocking fish in the Beehive State goes back to 1871.Early on the fish were purchased and transported from other states by train then stocked into lakes along the train route. In 1897, Utah opened its first hatcheries and started raising trout for local waters.