Commercial fishermen pay taxes, provide jobs, supply stores with salmon. To help cut costs, hatcheries recycle the spent salmon by selling the bodies to a fish food company who in turn sells it back to the hatchery at a discounted price. Hatcheries do this because in the wild the young salmon eat their decaying parents. For the past 60 years hatcheries have been helping to supply the Northwest with salmon. Hatcheries help provide jobs for commercial fishermen to bring salmon to the consumer.
Hatcheries also provide fish for the recreational user.
Wild life is dependent upon the salmon for its part in the ecosystem. Although hatcheries may not be totally perfect, they are working to improve their methods. We need hatcheries as much as people deny it.