Friends of the Upper Mississippi

Two USFWS worker extracting eggs out of a fish. Photo: USFWS

Lots of great conservation stories coming out of New York and Wisconsin this year. Ongoing conservation efforts with the New York Department of Conservation and the New York Field Office of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service have kept the Genoa staff busy this October. A substantial portion of Genoa’s crew and even a member of the Midwest Fisheries Center in La Crosse WI spent time in October travelling back and forth from Wisconsin to New York to further fisheries restorations in New York and the Midwest. Concurrent egg takes of lake trout eggs in Cayuga Lake, and lake sturgeon restoration efforts in multiple waterways in New York occurred the first two weeks of October of this year.
Jeff Lockington of the Genoa staff was the lead in collecting Cayuga Lake strain lake trout eggs with New York DEC staff yielding eggs of over 100 pair of females. The eggs were shipped or driven back to Genoa to be folded into our quarantine building activities. The lake trout from Cayuga Lake are descendants of Seneca Lake, another lake in the Finger Lakes Region of New York. Fish descended from this strain have been more resistant to post stocking sea lamprey predation in the Great Lakes and many spring yearling lake trout are produced annually for stocking each year throughout the Great Lakes system. Eggs brought to Genoa will be quarantined and inspected for any fish health issues for 18 months and 3 formal fish health inspections at the USFWS La Crosse Fish Health Center before release to captive broodstock stations in Michigan and Massachusetts. One year class of this strain is already residing in Genoa’s quarantine building and will be crossed with this new year class when becoming mature in order to increase the genetic contribution of their progeny. It is hoped that this will increase their fitness and survival post stocking to adapt and thrive outside of captivity in the Great Lakes. Also in this month, 2 stocking trips brought over 13,700 lake sturgeon fall fingerlings averaging over 6.25 inches back to the state of New York for ongoing restoration programs. The fish started as eggs taken from the St. Lawrence River in New York in June of this year, which were brought back to Genoa for growout. After a hard summer of growth, they were returned and stocked in state waters. Results from fall New York DEC surveys of last year showed that survey parameters were met in 4 of the states 6 management areas that indicate those areas are being restored. According to state restoration plans, if one more management area can meet these standards the species will meet de-listing criteria on the state’s Threatened and Endangered Species list. Great news for the many sturgeon enthusiasts, both professional and citizen scientists that participate in bringing back this unique species. By: Doug Aloisi

Jeff Lockington releasing lake sturgeon into a river. Photo: USFWS

As it gets close to the end of the growing season at Genoa, we begin to be tempted to look back and
evaluate the year, and review our overall conservation goals worked on. This usually involves not
just the calendar year, but some of our long term conservation actions that we work on with our
partners. Some exciting news over the course of this year included the documented spawning of lake
sturgeon in 3 of the populations that we have been stocking. Conservation departments from
Missouri, Georgia and Minnesota documented lake sturgeon spawning in populations that were either
extirpated before stocking, or in numbers reduced enough to determine that they were close to being
functionally extinct. River systems such as the Red River in Minnesota have not seen lake sturgeon
in those waters since the early 1900’s, and this year large pods of large sturgeon were seen in the act
of spawning. This was a direct result of hatchery stockings that began which Genoa has taken part in
since 2001. We hope to hear more good news soon in Tennessee and New York where lake
sturgeon stockings have resulted in expanding lake sturgeon populations in stocked watersheds and
sturgeon should be approaching spawning age.

About 19 freshwater mussels in sand with small rocks next to them under water. Photo: Megan Bradley/USFWS.

This year our mussel biologists have been hard at work on their Recovery programs as well and with
the help of many of our state, federal, and non-government Friends 2 new placements of federally
Endangered Higgins Eye Pearly mussels occurred in a system that is relatively free of the invasive
zebra mussel. The mussels were seen displaying their lures this summer, indicating that they had
fertilized larvae waiting to be attached to their fish host to complete their reproductive cycle. Many
thanks to all our federal, state and public and private participants in this process, including our citizen
scientists that volunteer and support our mission through volunteering to tag, harvest, feed, and lead
our Friends support group. We truly couldn’t walk this walk without you!
By: Doug Aloisi

Red River basin Lake Sturgeon adults spawning. Photo: USFWS

Big Stone Lake, located on the South Dakota – Minnesota border was once home to abundant
numbers of lake sturgeon. Many factors including over harvest and poor water quality led to an
extirpated population of lake sturgeon by year 1946. Currently South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks
and the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources are partnering to restore historic populations.
With the aid of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, the Genoa National Fish Hatchery
collected eggs from adult sturgeon in the Wisconsin River. Eggs were transported back to Genoa.
After a summer of intensive culture juvenile sturgeon are lengths of 6-8 inches. Prior to release all
sturgeon are coded wire tagged to track population trends in the future. The restoration plan calls for
the stocking of 4,000 fish per year for up to 20 years reared at the Genoa National Fish Hatchery.
The goal of these cooperative partnerships is to enable a long awaited return of lake sturgeon to Big
Stone Lake in support of restoring a fish for future generations to enjoy. By: Orey Eckes

Truck with trailer loading water and fish in tanks. Photo: Erica Rasmussen/USFWS.

Hatchery biologists joined partners from the Park Service the Minnesota-Wisconsin Ecological Services Field Office, U.S.G.S., and the University of Minnesota to search for displaying Winged Mapleleaf this year. Over the past 6 years we’ve experienced different patterns of flow and temperature across the fall and this year is different still, with very low water levels and persistent warm temperatures.  The Winged Mapleleaf responded and have been active early, but the warmer temperatures seems to be acting to slow down their displays. We found the first female in full display in the shallows on Thursday 9/22, an exciting start. We’ll be out on the river every other day for another week or so to ensure we find enough females to infest all of our host fish. We have many plans for any mussel larvae, from collaborative projects with U.S.G.S., to producing juveniles for our own culture at the hatchery.
By: Megan Bradley

A Winged Mapleleaf in full display. She is ready to infest her host fish, the mantle magazine is the grey protuberance sitting at the center of the white to grey plate of inflated mantle that she will not pull back when disturbed. Her glochidia, or larvae have been released into her mantle cavity in preparation for a fish mouthing at the magazine. If none arrives they’ll be ejected into the river after a day or so and she’ll burrow back down into the river bottom. Photo Credit: Megan Bradley/USFWS.

Newly transformed juvenile Snuffbox crawling in dish among sand. Photo: Megan Bradley/USFWS.

In collaboration with the WI DNR, GNFH is planning to restore Snuffbox populations in the Wolf River basin. Last fall, WI DNR biologists spent some chilly dive days aggregating males and females to ensure that brooding females could be found this spring. The original plan was to collect Wolf River Logperch, the Snuffbox’s host, and infest them on the side of the river but unfortunately that didn’t go as planned. Instead hatchery Logperch were infested and the females returned to the river. The first tiny babies (~150 ?m long) are dropping off now. These new juveniles will be stocked into the river shortly after drop off to approximately mimic the effect of the free-release.

Snuffbox is a favored species as it’s the only widespread member of its genus, all of which catch their host fish. This unexpected behavior begets novel characteristics (‘toothed’ shell edges, the capacity to sit open, exposing their body cavity to the environment) making these species fascinating to observe. How these behaviors and morphologies, or physical characteristics in biology jargon, have developed and been maintained is fascinating to consider. By: Megan Bradley
Biologist