On The Desk

SB 425
AWAITING SIGNATURE

Mostly A Good Idea

feds pay costs for awhile

.. SB 425 was transmitted to Governor Brian Schweitzer for signature yesterday. He is expected to sign the bill.
.. The full time operation of Fort Peck Hatchery will incur additional operating costs of $80,000 per year. This burden will be covered by federal Wallop-Breaux funds through 2012.
.. In 2012 the Montana Warm Water Stamp will be eliminated and state funding will be supplied from the general license fund. The estimated cost, to the state, of hatchery operation in 2013 is $243,616.
.. In 2014 the total cost of operations for Fort Peck Hatchery is estimated to be $436,059. This money will come from the general license funds.

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.. The Fort Peck Hatchery was built by the Corps of Engineers and completed in 2006. It is operated by the Montana Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks and sits on federal land leased by the state.
.. Since completion it has operated at less than capacity. It has been both under-used and under-funded.
.. In anticipation of completion the state instituted the $5 warm water stamp in 1999. This has been the primary source of funding for the facility and it has been insufficient to fully utilize the available 22,000-sq.-foot hatchery.
.. Up until now the hatchery has been essentially idle after the annual walleye production has been completed. SB 425 will change that. The facility is capable of producing tiger muskies, smallmouth bass, largemouth bass, channel catfish, sauger, and the endangered pallid sturgeon, in addition to the walleye.
.. The hatchery could also produce trout if Montana law would allow it. Currently trout that are planted in the eastern part of the state are trucked in from other hatcheries at a cost of thousands of dollars in gasoline and staff time.

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.. We look for a $1 - $2 increase in license fees to take place in the next year or two to support the full funding and operation of the hatchery. We suspect that there is already a draft bill for the production of trout at the facility. This will relieve the burden on the state's other 7 hatcheries.
.. We commend the legislature for this straightforward approach to funding. We commend them for rejecting the thinly veiled attempt at funding in the guise of declaring the walleye a native fish. And, we commend them for placing the burden of funding on the population of users.
--> SB 425 Language
--> SB 425 History
--> SB 425 Fiscal Note
--> FWP Funding Page
--> FWP Quick Facts for Fort Peck
--> All 8 Montana Hatcheries

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.. Well, time for steak and eggs. With all due respect to the 2008 "Orvis Fly-Tyer of The Year," Greg Senyo; we'll eat ours before yours.

As Arnold Said . . .

"I'LL BE BACK" - ohmygawd

SB 425 Alive But Not Well - Yet

Keep Watching This One

.. Just when we thought the Montana State Legislature had settled down to do the people's work along comes our old friend SB 425. It's hard to kill a walleye. The current bill is just a re-write of the construction authorization bill and a hasty effort to generate funds for an ailing facility.

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.. Here's an interesting section for your perusal: (red=stricken, blue=new, black=as written.)

--> (4) Costs for hatchery construction, operation, maintenance, and personnel are to be funded with revenue in the warm water game fish accounts established in 87-3-236, revenue in the general license account, or any federal funding available to the department. It is intended that the hatchery be constructed in stages as revenue becomes available in the warm water game fish accounts established in 87-3-236."

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.. At least the walleye is not going to be "declared" a native species in order to generate the funding.
.. Perhaps there are "WALLEYE BAILOUT FUNDS." Perhaps, as the hasty bill suggests, - we should all bailout the walleye.
.. For some informative reporting about the SB 425 visit GazOutdoors. For some interesting analysis check Will Fish For Work, (#1, #2.)
.. The bill has struggled but looks like it's a done deal.
.. The Bill's History: click HERE
.. The Verbiage: click HERE.
.. Montana FWP page on funding options: click HERE

Lake Fish Hatchery

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PART OF A MISSPENT YOUTH

.. The Yellowstone National Park Web Page continues to grow. It's a bit less user friendly now. However, since the revamped site was brought into line with the rest of the NPS sites, (well most of them,) there have been additions of at least 2,000 new slides and the publication of on-line resources, including Yellowstone National Park Its Exploration and Establishment by Aubrey L. Haines.

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.. The early years of Yellowstone National Park saw an attitude of exploitation and sporting hedonism prevail. The park was the playground of those who could afford a train ride, a guided tour, and lodgings in grand, (and not-so-grand,) hotels.
.. Hunting was allowed, and fishing encouraged - nay, even exploited by commercial fishing operations.:

When Yellowstone National Park was created about 40% of its waters were barren of fish. Park administrators early expressed an interest in developing these areas for additional sport. Until 1883, both hunting and fishing were allowed in Yellowstone as the only practical way to feed visitors evolving from a frontier subsistence policy. By the early 1880s there were enough hotels and restaurants to allow a ban on hunting. At the same time, fishing was restricted to sportsmen and a few commercial enterprises who supplied the hotels. This continued until 1917.

.. In 1889, the United States Fish Commission began fieldwork in Yellowstone. A fish cultural station was in operation on Yellowstone Lake ten years later. "It was the beginning of a gigantic hatchery operation that in the next fifty seven years would yield 818 million trout eggs for use in other waters (mostly outside Yellowstone.)" In 1911, the Yellowstone Park Lake Station was made a substation of the Federal hatchery at Bozeman, Montana.
.. Facilities were primitive in those days. The fish hatching ponds were wooden troughs outside. These were consistently damaged by bears and the eggs destroyed. A permanent two story log hatchery building and another log building were constructed on hatchery Creek near the Lake Hotel in 1912, along with a collecting station at Clear Creek in 1913. The Columbine Creek collecting station was built in 1914 and a cottage for the superintendent a few years later. These buildings no longer exist.
.. As early as 1920, the Annual Report of the Director of the National Parks indicated the Lake Hatchery was replenishing the depleted fish supply in the National Park Service. In 1922, the scale of the operations was increased with a new hatchery being established at Fish Lake. The annual report for that year proposed "...that a Federal hatchery be established in other national parks whenever that is feasible."
.. This philosophy of using artificial means to replenish the fish of the National Park System waters was soon to be abandoned. The old U.S. Fish Commission had been combined with the Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife to form the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. "While on the one hand the National Park Service was suppose to be preserving native fish populations, on the other hand the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service was supposed to mass produce trout."
.. The tension grew between the Fish and Wildlife Service and park managers. In 1957, the hatcheries were shut down. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service personnel shifted their attention to research. In 1958, the artificial propagation of fish at Lake was halted and the catch limited to a figure within the natural regenerative powers of the species. In 1996 the National Park Service assumed responsibility for managing the park's fishery program. {excerpt from YELLOWSTONE HISTORY}

.. Additionally, there were railroad cars and boats used specifically for the fish planting and moving operations. The USFWS discovered "U.S. Fisheries # 40" in 1980 and had it restored. They have also restored some railroad cars that were used to transport across the country.

The first experimental transport of fish by rail from the east coast to the west was conducted by Dr. Livingston Stone of the U.S. Fish Commission in 1873. In charge of 35,000 shad fry carried in open milk cans, Dr. Stone changed the water every two hours where possible in order to deliver this shipment safe and sound for planting in California. By 1879, due to this first demonstration, fish were being successfully shepherded by railcar across the nation.

THE GOOD LIFE

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