Friends of the Upper Mississippi

View of the inside of building with excavator.

Since the early 1930’s Genoa has had gravel cold water rearing units serviced by an artesian well just south of the new office building location. The artesian water is a cool 52 degree Fahrenheit and is great for growing trout. In the early 1990’s these gravel raceways were replaced with buried fiberglass raceways. Unfortunately, during flood years they were inundated and undercut with water which made them unstable. Through an increased funding level in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Deferred Maintenance program, the hatchery was awarded a project to replace the fiberglass raceways with concrete raceways and headbox, and a poured concrete floor to replace a gravel floor. These concrete surfaces will also be much more bio-secure, allowing us to properly disinfect the rearing units and building between year classes of fish. The building will then be dedicated to the production of coaster brook trout. The new facilities will allow us to go from egg to stocking without exposing them to any of the other recovery and restoration programs that we currently have ongoing at Genoa. This will give them their own fish health certificate as well, allowing importation to other state partners without the risk of any fish health concerns into their receiving waters. Other improvements to the water delivery system including modifying the artesian well to increase water flows to 350 gallons per minute from 150 gallons per minute by adding a submerged pump in the existing well. This will also increase fish health by reducing fish metabolic products and increasing water quality. Liquid oxygen is also added to the water to increase fish health and reduce free iron concentrations that are inherent in artesian water in our region. We look forward to starting the next batch of coasters in their new digs early next year!
By: Doug Aloisi

Concrete floors with the beginning stages of a raceway.

A rainy day at Blackhawk Park didn’t stop the young anglers from fishing! On Saturday, August 7, 2021 the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers hosted the annual youth fishing derby. The free event included educational programs and a fishing derby for children 12 years old or younger. The fishing derby was followed by a wonderful lunch and awards ceremony with prizes. Genoa National Fish Hatchery employees Erica Rasmussen and Jeff Lockington participated in the event by teaching an educational program on the function of the hatchery, fish identification and life cycle of freshwater mussels. The participants were even able to hold a live surgeon! This was a great event and awesome opportunity to get children firsthand experience fishing the backwaters of the mighty Mississippi River!
By: Erica Rasmussen

My son, Easton holding a lake sturgeon and my daughter, Ava holding a bass @ Blackhawk Park. Photo: USFWS.

2021 marks the 150th anniversary of the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. From its origins in fisheries conservation in 1871, there have been tremendous changes in the Upper Mississippi River. But for freshwater mussels, the need remains the same; populations of species and communities of them that are resilient to change and local impacts. This isn’t to say that the historic harvest, hydrologic change, pollution, and invasive species introductions in the interim haven’t caused declines, extirpations (when a species is eliminated from an area, but not caused to go extinct), and the need for protection and management at the state and federal level, but that our objectives are the same. What does resilient mean from an environmental perspective? Perhaps it’s best to think of species as ships. Some are able to withstand a hurricane at sea or the crossing of the Drake Passage to Antarctica while even the unsinkable Titanic failed to cross the North Atlantic. The most resilient species have large enough numbers to withstand failures in reproduction, the loss of portions of their populations, genetic diversity for future adaptation to their environment, so we must find ways to recognize and protect this resilience even in our common species to maintain the resilience of their communities and ecosystems and the biosphere.
What does resilient mean for populations and communities of freshwater mussels? It’s a complex question and one we don’t have specific parameters for most species, much less most communities. This year at the hatchery we’ve completed two surveys as further steps in identifying characteristics of resilient populations. One on the Chippewa River where two federally endangered mussel species, the Winged Mapleleaf and the Higgins Eye pearlymussel were reintroduced and one at Guttenberg, IA on the Mississippi River where a train derailment occurred in 2008. Each survey’s data represents a different portion of the web of resilience.

Hatchery reared and reintroduced Higgins Eye found during the Chippewa River survey. Photo Credit: Megan Bradley/ USFWS

For the reintroduction on the Chippewa, a formula was used to calculate persistence of a number of mussels for release based on an estimated chance of survival, the area, and the percent of the community we wanted them to represent, based on other freshwater mussel communities where they’re found. Our survey shows that our estimate of survival over five years was very conservative and there are likely many more Higgins Eye still persisting in the population than we’d predicted. This data helps us refine what mortality and survivorship might look like for this species since all of the Higgins Eye pearlymussels found in the area were placed there. The Guttenberg survey looks at the response of what was likely an old, stable freshwater mussel community to an acute event, or the proverbial cannonball from on high. This year’s survey shows that mussel densities have rebounded to those at the time just after the event with support from reintroduction efforts from the hatchery and that subadult mussels added to the site have survived and grown.
These efforts, while small in the larger scope of freshwater mussel conservation, might play a role in understanding what it means for a mussel species or community to be resilient in the future while furthering individual species recovery in the Chippewa and Mississippi rivers. Every mussel recovered from a cage, tagged, or placed in the rivers by our volunteers and biologists are subtly shaping the science of freshwater mussel recovery and that that’s some pretty significant change from some pretty tiny mussels.
By: Megan Bradley

White suckers inoculated with Rock Pocketbook mussels are housed in an AHAB system- a series of flow-through aquariums that allow easy collection of juvenile mussels after they have transformed and dropped of the fish’s gills. Photo: Beth Glidewell/USFWS.

A pair of hatchery reared and released Higgins Eye found in the Guttenberg mussel survey. Photo: Megan Bradley/USFWS.

Genoa Fish Hatchery relies on volunteers and friends members to accomplish the task of tagging our lake sturgeon. Each sturgeon before stocking is individually tagged by a coded wire tagging machine. This allows biologist to track growth and survival rates after stocking.

Anyone interested in tagging please contact Erica Rasmussen or Darla Wenger (phone: 608-689-2605) or email erica_rasmussen@fws.gov or darla_wenger@fws.gov. Your help and support for fisheries conservation is much appreciated! Get a chance to hold many of these ancient sturgeon. We will be tagging Monday-Friday from 8 AM-3 PM, starting August 9th and usually lasting until beginning of October or until all sturgeon have been tagged.

Reserve your seat now! Before all the sturgeon are tagged.

By: Orey Eckes

Volunteers: Kathy (pictured left) and Rosie (pictured right) tag sturgeon by Raena Parsons/USFWS

Dairyland Power Cooperative has been a valued partner in conservation with the fish hatchery for the past several decades. Their commitment to our conservation mission manifested itself recently by supplying an accessible fishing dock to one of our ponds in order to hold targeted fishing events and supplying a peregrine falcon display in our newly added Interpretive Center. The exhibit highlights their conservation work with this species. Recently during a scheduled Dairyland employee tour of the new Center, it was suggested that there was also an interesting bit of local history that would add to the Centers mission of pointing out local stories of historical interest. In fact, two topics emerged that really piqued our interest to use the Center to point out historical and conservation stories of the area. The first was to capture the story of the construction and final disposition of the Genoa’s prototype LaCrosse boiling water nuclear reactor, the first in the nation.

This pictorial story was compiled by Dana Bolwerk, Communications Specialist for Dairyland. The exhibit is currently in the local history wing in the Center. The next addition was to add a live camera feed of nesting adult peregrine falcons on the smokestack chimney of Dairyland’s Alma Wisconsin Power Plant. The nest and its two adults fledged 4 birds this year alone. During the off nesting periods the story of Dairyland’s Peregrine Falcon restoration efforts are described in a PowerPoint Display. We could not have added this exhibit without the help of Dairyland’s Environmental Biologist Ben Campbell and IT Specialist Mark Abitz.

We are very pleased with the addition of these fascinating local stories and feel that they truly help the Great River Road traveler understand the intrinsic history and conservation stories of the Upper Mississippi River region. Please come in and check them out! By: Doug Aloisi