Our environmental degradation of freshwater environments has created a severe impact on fish. It is estimated that 25% of freshwater fish species are at risk of extinction. Conservation efforts to prevent extinction usually include augmentation of hatchery-produced fish, because it is seen as a way to quickly stabilize the imperiled population and because it is also the most manageable component of a conservation program. Unfortunately, augmentation programs have had little success. The reason why is the way fish are cultured. The traditional approach uses industrial, farming-type management, which produces fish that have high hatchery fitness but that have low fitness in the wild. They are mal-adapted genetically, epigenetically, and behaviorally to the wild environment, which is why augmenting hatchery fish in recovery programs have been most unsuccessful and, in some cases, counter-productive. To rescue an evolution-created entity (a species), the fish culture component of an aquaculture-assisted fisheries program must be based on evolution. Fish that are produced for augmentation must be similar to the wild fish evolutionarily; i.e., their genetics, epigenetics, and behaviors have to be similar or the augmented fish will be an evolutionary mismatch to the wild stock in terms of fitness. To improve success in an aquaculture-assisted fisheries program, fish need to be cultured using conservation aquaculture, which is a naturalized, extensive management program where fish are raised in mesocosms that resemble the wild environment where they will be stocked. Conservation aquaculture is an evolution-based approach to the culture of fish for aquaculture-assisted fisheries programs, which will produce fish that are genetically, epigenetically, and behaviorally similar to the wild stock. Because of this, fish produced using conservation aquaculture will have high wild fitness so they will be better able to survive after they are stocked; additionally, they will not reduce the fitness of the wild stock following introgression.