California needs to dramatically reform its fish hatcheries in order to maintain healthy salmon and steelhead populations, according to a major new study.

The $2 million study, released Tuesday by state and federal wildlife agencies, concludes nearly two years of work by a panel of fishery experts. It found, among other things, that the state lacks standard protocols to manage the 40 million salmon it produces each year at eight hatcheries. It also does not do enough field monitoring to fully understand the fate of all those fish.

The hatcheries, most of them on the Sacramento River and its tributaries, were built to atone for the spawning habitat eliminated by dams. But artificial breeding can also weaken the wild salmon that remain, making the entire population more vulnerable to environmental disruptions.

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