The United States Fish and Wildlife Service Fisheries program was started in 1875. The Fisheries program is made up of two sectors, the National Fish Hatchery System and the Fish and Wildlife Management Assistance Program. The main responsibility of the Fisheries program is to restore the population of endangered fish species to a healthy level. Included in this is their responsibility to educate the public on how to aid in their conservation. They also help to ensure that there will be continuing opportunities for the avid, American fisherman.

The Fish and Wildlife Management Assistance program of the Fish and Wildlife Service has many responsibilities. Their main function is as a planning service. They are responsible for developing a plan to help restore the populations of endangered species of fish. They also monitor the status of stock fish and work on preventing the invasion of a species of a fish that will prey on other species in an unhealthy way. When repopulating occurs, the Management Assistance program monitors the effectiveness of the actions. Their final responsibility is to educate the public about conservation practices.

The National Fish Hatchery program has multi-functional responsibilities. They use hatcheries to breed fish that have no genetic defects and then place them into the wild to repopulate in areas that are depleted. The hatchery workers do research to identify and try to prevent disease that may be affecting fish and aquatic wildlife. In addition to all of this, they also provide refuge habitats to fish that have become an endangered species, as an attempt to allow them time to breed for the purpose of repopulating.

The Fish and Wildlife Service Fish Hatchery program ensures the survival of game fish by monitoring and maintaining their populations. They do this by forcing compliance with limits imposes by both the state and federal governments. The purpose in doing this is to ensure that game fish such as the largemouth bass and the smallmouth bass do not get into a state that could border on endangerment. Fishing is not only a great source of both food and fun, but it is also a major part of the economy in areas where there are large bodies of water or large rivers. Any upset in the population of a local game fish, could have very negative repercussions on the local economy.