Waterfowl Observation Day

Come join us! The FREE annual Waterfowl Observation Day celebration hosted by the Friends of the Refuge – Mississippi River Pools 7 & 8 (FOR78), the Friends of the Upper Mississippi River (FUM), and the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Refuge will be held on Saturday, November 9 at the Brownsville Overlook near Brownsville, MN between 10:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. Visitors will be able to view migrating birds as they rest and feed. 

Spotting scopes and bird identification guides will be available for visitors to enjoy. Refuge staff and members of FUM and FOR78 will assist with bird identification and answer related questions. Light refreshments will be available while supplies last, during this event only, courtesy of FUM. Friends’ members from both organizations will have wildlife-themed items available for purchase. Please dress for chilly weather!

The Brownsville Overlook is one of the best places along the river to see hundreds of tundra swans, diving and puddle ducks, bald eagles and other birds. The overlook is located about three miles south of Brownsville, Minn., along MN Highway 26. 

Lake Sturgeon Tagging Recap


This year Genoa National Fish Hatchery staff collected lake sturgeon eggs from the Wolf, Wisconsin, Rainy, St. Clair and Sturgeon Rivers. Throughout the summer hatchery biologists, pathways students and youth conservation corp. enrollees have their hands full feeding and caring for lake sturgeon. As the summer season comes to an end and fall begins, these fish are ready to be tagged before being released to their stocking locations. Some lake sturgeon are coded wire tagged and others receive PIT tags and/or acoustic tags. By tagging the lake sturgeon it allows resource managers to assess future population growth, survival, and movements. The Genoa National Fish Hatchery partnered with the Wisconsin DNR for the collection of the Wolf River and Wisconsin River along with National Fish Hatchery. Genoa also partnered with the Minnesota DNR, La Crosse Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, Valley City National Fish Hatchery and Garrison Dam National Fish Hatchery to collect, raise, and release Rainy River lake sturgeon. Thank you to all of our volunteers that aided in the tagging process where over 28,000 lake sturgeon were coded wire tagged from the Wolf, Wisconsin and Rainy Rivers this year. Hatchery staff rely heavily on volunteers and partnerships to assist with individually tagging. Volunteers play a vital role in supporting the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. When these fish are tagged, they are ready for transport to designated locations from Northern Minnesota to Southern Tennessee and west to South Dakota in support of continued restoration efforts.
For the St. Clair lake sturgeon the Genoa National Fish hatchery partnered with the Alpena Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office, Michigan DNR, and La Crosse Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office to collect, raise, tag, and release the St Clair lake sturgeon. Acoustic and PIT tags were used to track future growth, survival rates and movements in the Cuyahoga and Maumee Rivers. There was also lake sturgeon that only received PIT tags to be stocked in the Saginaw, Maumee, Flint, Cass, Shiawassee, and Tittabawassee Rivers for future growth and survival rates.

 

lake sturgeon upside down in a sponge

 

acoustic tag going into a fish

 

Winged Mapleleaf season is underway!

Biologists search for displaying Winged Mapleleaft at the St Croix National Scenic Riverway. Photo Credit: Beth Glidewell/USFWS.

As early fall water temperatures begin to drop in the St Croix River, female Winged Mapleleaf mussels are ready to have their glochidia attach to host fish. They display a lure that helps to attract channel catfish closer to the female, where she can release glochidia into the water and -hopefully- onto the catfish’s gills. Individual females only display a lure for a short window of time (a day or 2) so mussel biologists have to time collection and propagation efforts to match the mussel’s and the river’s fluctuations. Biologists snorkel or scuba dive 2 to 3 times per week during the WML brooding season to visually check the population for females that are in ‘full display’.

A Winged Mapleleaf in full display. Photo Credit: Beth Glidewell/USFWS.

 

Pond Harvest


As the lake sturgeon head out the door it’s time to see if all our hard worked paid off this summer in our ponds. Each year we raise many different species in our ponds including Walleye, Largemouth Bass, Smallmouth Bass, Yellow Perch, and Black Crappie.
In the spring, these ponds are either stocked with fry or parents to produce offspring. Ponds are then provided alfalfa to aid in zooplankton production for the offspring as a food source. The fish are then tested by fish health and then continue to grow where their food source may switch from zooplankton to worms, bugs, and minnows. Minnows are harvested out of our minnow pond each day where over 20 minnow traps are set to help feed and grow our fish. These ponds are then harvested in late September and early October. Once a pond is harvested the fish are brought inside to determine the number and weight of fish to see how they grew throughout the year. Some of these fish are set aside for mussel culture and the rest are picked up by different partners for stocking. These stockings allow for a multitude of different recreational fisheries within their perspective states. Now that ponds have been drained some will be left empty for the winter months and some will have fish in them over the winter. The ponds containing fish consist of adults used for our future offspring, fish kept for outreach events, fish for mussel culture, and Rainbow trout to continue growing until their stocking in the spring for recreational fishing. We look forward to our pond season next year and hope to continue producing successful pond rearing programs!
By: Jadon Motquin

staff netting fish

STURGEON TAGGING

Hi friends, starting the week of Aug 19th the hatchery could use some help tagging sturgeon. If you are interested please contact Erica at 608-689-2605 for days and times available. As usual, any help would be greatly appreciated! Thank you in advance. I hope you all have a great weekend, take care, Al.

Fish On!

 Smiles, screams of excitement and cheers were all witnessed at our Kids Fishing Day Event that took place on Saturday, May 18th! The event was a great success with 172 kids that participated and over 320 people in attendance. For some this was their very first-time fishing. For everyone it was a day of fun and making memories! There were four learning stations where children were able to gain some newfound knowledge. The stations included rules and regulations by our state and federal wardens, mussel ID by our hatchery staff, fish ID by our hatchery staff and water/boat safety tips provided by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. After the learning stations, the children were off to catch up to five fish in the hatchery pond. A huge thank you to the Friends of the Upper Mississippi for sponsoring the event! They also provided a fish cleaning station for families to take home clean trout and arranged a light lunch for all to enjoy! We had over 30 volunteers to help make this event successful! Thank you for the overwhelming support from the Friends of the Upper Mississippi, Roch Kendrick foundation, Friends of Pool 9, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Fisheries and Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife & Fish Refuge and our community. Thank you! By: Erica Rasmussen

Genoa NFH’s New Mobile Egg Trailer


Genoa National Fish Hatchery’s new CPR (Conservation, Propagation, and Restoration) trailer is on the move. Genoa National Fish Hatchery is known for producing tens of thousands of lake sturgeon on an annual basis. The juvenile sturgeon produced at the hatchery every year are the result of multiple spawning events in as many as four states. On average, staff from Genoa NFH log over four thousand miles a year behind the steering wheel to accomplish lake sturgeon spawning and egg collection activities. Often, spawning activities take 6 to 8 hours to complete and then there’s the drive back to the hatchery to place the eggs on the incubation unit until they hatch. Often this drive can take up to 17 hours, in addition to spawning activities. This new trailer will allow Genoa NFH staff to pull over when the number of work and/or driving hours are met and plug the trailer directly into an electrical outlet found at any hotel or rest stop. Photo: Lake sturgeon eggs incubating in the egg jar battery in the new CPR mobile trailer. Credit: USFWS
So, what is it and how does it work? The CPR trailer is an enclosed, self-contained mobile egg jar battery complete with McDonald hatching jars, a recirculating pump, chiller unit to keep eggs cool, and its own Wi-Fi monitored alarm system. The jar battery can hold 18 egg hatchery jars while maintaining a temperature range of 11 C to 18 C. If the temperature range or flow rates deviate from set parameters, the alarm system will call out to hatchery staff. The mobile unit also includes a generator which can power the trailer while staff is driving or when power is not available.
The new CPR trailer is breathing new life into lake sturgeon egg collection and incubation, but its use will likely be expanded to include the many species the hatchery collects eggs from every year. This mobile unit will lead to better egg success and more importantly, safer for the hatchery staff. By: Craig Bockholt

Photo: Lake sturgeon eggs incubating in the egg jar battery in the new CPR mobile trailer. Credit: USFWS

Lake Sturgeon Collection of the Sturgeon River

Genoa National Fish Hatchery raises tens of thousands of Lake Sturgeon every year for restoration efforts across the country. We currently raise Lake Sturgeon from the Wolf River, Wisconsin River, Rainy River, St. Clair River, and St. Lawerence River that are stocked in Tennessee, Minnesota, Ohio, and New York. This year we are excited to announce we have added the Sturgeon River to our resume. With the help of federal, state, and tribal partners adult Lake Sturgeon collection occurred near the Prickett Dam.
The eggs were collected and fertilized and then transported to the Genoa National Fish Hatchery. These fish will be raised at Genoa for approximately 4 months where they will grow to 7-8in. They will then be tagged and brought to Missouri where half will be released in the upper Missouri River and half will be released in the lower Missouri River. We are very excited to add another strain to our Lake Sturgeon restoration effort and look forward to continued restoration of the Lake Sturgeon. By: Jadon Motquin

Hundreds of 2-3-inch Lake Sturgeon in a tank. Photo: Erica Rasmussen/USFWS