Trout Information



Blue Rainbow Trout
Blue Rainbow Trout are a mutation that occur in hatchery production of rainbow trout. So far, this rare genetic glitch has occurred only in rainbow and brown trout. To understand the rarity of Blue Rainbow Trout one hatchery recorded 30 rainbow trout were blue in a spawn of about four million eggs. One year, more blue trout might appear. Another year, fewer.

"They are typically separated early on from the other trout because they're weaker fish and unless they are set aside, during the first year the other fish usually eat them, or they succumb to the rigors of the hatchery's high-density environmental conditions."

Also Blue Rainbow Trout don't reproduce. Neither the males nor the females develop mature reproductive organs.

"We've been getting blue rainbow trout and blue brown trout for some 30 years or more, as long as I've been with the Commission," says Bill Kennedy, Bureau of Fisheries Training Officer. "Years ago there was a concerted effort to produce a line of blue trout. But Dr. James Wright, a Penn State geneticist, determined that something was wrong with them physiologically."

Wright identified them as genetic anomalies, or mutations. He determined that blue trout probably suffer from a thyroid deficiency. A fish's thyroid gland produces hormones that affect its coloring during all its life stages. Thus, the hormonal mix-up lets these fish form only the bluish pigment.

"Blue trout are extremely rare," Kennedy says, "and they are not something we can selectively breed. Hatcheries keep them as show fish."

Albino Rainbow Trout
Albino trout, like blue trout, are another rare genetic anomaly. Because of a different kind of genetic quirk, albino trout lack the ability to color themselves normally. Albino trout are different from blue trout in several ways: Albino trout are just as vibrant as other trout. They can also reproduce, but getting more albino trout is rare and unpredictable. All trout species can produce albinos.

Golden Rainbow Trout
Golden rainbow trout and the related palomino trout are genetically manipulated fish. In 1954, the West Virginia Conservation Department discovered a single rainbow trout that was partly normally pigmented and partly gold. West Virginia developed the fully golden strain, and by the 1960s, that strain became popular among anglers. In the 1960s, the Commission began producing and stocking the gold-colored palomino trout. The Commission now raises and stocks a slightly different strain, the golden rainbow trout. The rarity of that one partly golden fish was just as uncommon as albino and blue trout.