Friends of the Upper Mississippi

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

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

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