Getting excited when fish produce sperm would usually get you strange looks. But for Tomoyuki Okutsu and colleagues at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, it’s all part of a day’s work. They are trying to use one species of fish as surrogate parents for another, a technique that could help to preserve species that are headed for extinction.

Okutsu works on salmonids, a group of fish that includes salmon and trout. Many members of this tasty clan have suffered greatly from over-fishing in the last few decades, and their populations are dwindling their way to extinction.

If stocks fall below a critical level, they may need a jump-start. One strategy is to freeze some eggs to be