Burbot Lota lota maculosa were once abundant in the Kootenai/ay River Basin; Idaho USA and British Columbia Canada, where they provided important cultural, recreational, and commercial fisheries. Beginning in the 1970's, cumulative effects of habitat loss and hydro-power operations lead to an extirpation of Burbot populations. A multi-agency cooperative program lead by the Kootenai Tribe of Idaho (KTOI), the University of Idaho Aquaculture Research Institute (UIARI) , the British Columbia Ministry (BCM) and Idaho Department of Fish and Game (IDFG) has resulted in development of a program to conserve, restore and monitor a native strain of Burbot now being used to rebuild and restore populations on a basin-wide scale. From 2009 to present, the program transitioned from UIARI laboratory-scale production to larger-scale production at a new KTOI Tribal fish hatchery . The Kootenai Tribe of Idaho Native Fish Conservation Aquaculture Program now operates the hatchery to support Kootenai River Burbot conservation aquaculture and IDFG and BCM complement the program by means of in-river post-re lease monitoring and evaluation. A nnual hatchery juvenile Burbot releases have been variable (ranging 40,000 - 750,000 beginning in 2015) ; however, a long-term pre-determined restoratio n goal of 17,500 spawning adults has been achieved. The new facility was designed to an nually produce 125,000 6-month old juvenile Burbot averaging 100 mm total length and 5 - 10 g body weight. With the production target and restoration goal in mind, the program has currently rejuvenated the population beyond 17,500 spawning adults. Current population estimates of adult Burbot in the basin exceed 50,000. Based on this success, the program is now also supporting experimental releases of early life stages (e.g., eggs, larvae) into river, floodplain, side-channel, and lake habitats to further evaluate habitat constraints that remain. The information gained from these early life studies through collaboration with IDFG and BCM monitoring programs may help guide future habitat restorat ion in the b asin. The overarching goal of the program is to restore self-sustaining, naturally recruiting population s for cultural and recreational use. In general, this presentation will highlight the progression of conservation aquaculture method developments and program research support to understand recruitment bottlenecks .