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Day: April 26, 2012

Arizona B.A.S.S. Federation Nation adds more Fish Habitat

Posted on by david
‘Don McDowell and Chris Cantrell share a check for $12,600 for working on the state’s habitat project. A mold for a Reef Ball is in the foreground.’    Don McDowell

Reefballs are making a significant impact – Efforts to enhance Arizona’s bass fisheries with man-made habitats received a big boost, when the Arizona B.A.S.S. Federation Nation (ABFN) was awarded a $12,600 grant. That money from Arizona Sportsmen for Wildlife Conservation (ASWC) will be used to assist Arizona Game and Fish (AGF) in making concrete Reef Balls.

See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.

Reef Balls are the Arizona chapter’s answer to the state’s lack of habitat in its fisheries. Made of 3/4 yard of concrete, a Reef Ball looks like a half-sphere of Swiss cheese, according to Chris Cantrell, AGF fishery manager. He added that ecosystems form in and around the balls, which were popularized for marine fisheries. ‘It’s really good habitat that’s there for a long time,’ said Cantrell. ‘A Reef Ball is thought to take more than 500 years of saltwater.’

Compare that to five to 20 years for most artificial habitat.

‘Money will be spent to create additional molds to allow bulk concrete purchases to mass produce Reef Balls in one fell swoop instead of hand-mixing the concrete,’ said Don McDowell, ABFN conservation director.

‘This will allow us to build 12 additional three-piece molds,’ he continued, adding that this is the first time that the organization has provided a grant for fish habitat.

‘Looks like our fish are getting much needed new furniture much sooner than we had hoped for,’ he continued. ‘Our deepest gratitude to the ASWC.’

Sometime this fall, Saguaro Lake probably will be the next fishery to receive Reef Balls, which ABFN volunteers will help build, load, offload and place. The first was Tempe Town Lake.

Other funding so far has included a $910 donation from Midweek Bass Anglers from the club’s Holiday Open.

‘Once we’re to the production phase, we can go anywhere,’ Cantrell continued. ‘The concrete, renting the forklifts, moving the habitat, getting volunteers — all of that will be the easy part. The hard part is getting the molds created.’

Lack of habitat in Arizona waters is the No. 1 limiting factor for anglers.

‘It’s like a bathtub out there,’ Cantrell said of Arizona’s impoundments.

‘We don’t have a renewable resource,’ McDowell added. ‘We have to babysit the fish. And we have to take care of the habitat before we can have the fish.’

Bass Master website
AZ Sportsman for Wildlife Conservation website
Arizona Game and Fish website


by Robert Montgomery

Lake Norman Fish Habitat Projects succeed with TBFN

Posted on by david

New habitats for fish and osprey at Lake Norman

By Joe Marusak
See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.

Jose Mundo, an employee of Lancaster Custom Dock & Lift Systems Inc., places sticks while “seeding” a new osprey nest about 25 feet above the water of Lake Norman on Thursday.

MORE INFORMATION

  • New habitat for Lake Norman creatures
  • Spotted bass, hybrids thrive in Lake Norman water

  • WANT TO HELP?

    To volunteer with Saturday’s Lake Norman buttonbush planting and other N.C. Wildlife Federation projects, visit www.ncwf.org or call Chris North, federation conservation director, at 704-332-5696. GPS coordinates for the rock reef sites are on the federation’s web site.

LAKE NORMAN Fishermen watched from boats as a trackhoe on a barge dumped 270 tons of boulders into Lake Norman Thursday, and a worker placed a manmade osprey nest 25 feet above the water on a sturdy wood pole.

The nonprofit N.C. Wildlife Federation led the initiatives in an ongoing effort to build habitat for wildlife, both fish and birds of prey.

“The more rock piles, the more habitat you put in the lake, the more (fishing) tournaments you have and the more money you generate for the local economy,” longtime Lake Norman fishing guide Gus Gustafson said. “There’s not enough rock piles to go around.”

Gustfason and other fishermen pulled nearby as trackhoe operator Ignacio Martinez of Lancaster Custom Docks and Lift Systems dumped rocks into 25 to 30 feet of water off the southern end of Brawley School Road peninsula in southern Iredell County. Other boulders were dropped farther north, near Lake Norman State Park in Troutman. The rocks came from a quarry in Denver, N.C.

The boulders are intended to create habitat for catfish, spotted and largemouth bass and other prized catches at the bottom of North Carolina’s largest lake.

By Friday morning, the fishermen knew, shad, herring and other bait fish would cluster at the rocks for protection from the larger fish, which in turn become unsuspecting catches for rods and reels.

“It’s the same as how people congregate at the opening of a new mall,” Gustfason said.

The federation led the rock dumping for the second year in a row. In 2011, Lancaster trackhoes plopped 270 tons of boulders at two other locations on the lake, creating fish habitat on the lake’s otherwise sandy bottom.

Fishermen previously established habitat by tossing Christmas trees into the lake, but the trees rot in a year, they said.

In 2009, federation volunteers also placed 200 porcupine-like “fish attractors” in the waters north of the N.C. 150 bridge and 100 attractors in Mountain Island Lake. They’re still there, attracting fish and anglers, said Tim Gestwicki, federation executive director.

On Thursday, volunteers from the federation and its Lake Norman Wildlife Conservationists chapter also peered skyward as a harnessed-in Jose Mundo placed sticks on a platform made of chain-link fencing and galvanized steel tubing to form an osprey nest.

“The birds will drop their own sticks onto the platform and then weave them all together,” said Stephen Turley, a federation board member who built the nesting platform at his Lake Norman home and six other platforms to be placed on the lake this year.

The federation has placed nearly 50 osprey platforms over the years at lakes along the Catawba River chain, from Lake James to Lake Wylie, Gestwicki said. He said a 2011 survey revealed 50 pairs of osprey nesting on Lake Norman alone.

The federation also plans to add two great blue heron rookeries on Lake Norman this year. On Saturday, its volunteers will plant 1,000 buttonbush plants at seven locations on Lake Norman islands, wetland areas and shoreline to slow erosion. The plant’s white flowers benefit hummingbirds, butterflies and honey bees, and its seeds provide food for wood ducks, mallards and migratory teal.

In 2011, the federation provided $100,000 for Mecklenburg County to preserve land at Mountain Island Lake.

Duke Energy’s Habitat Enhancement Program fund paid for the federation’s initiatives. Proceeds from dock and other fees help pay for the program, which has awarded $433,000 to projects in the Carolinas since it began in 2007.

Read more here: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/04/19/3185556/new-habitats-for-fish-and-osprey.html#storylink=cpy

Farmers protect fish habitat in their fields

Posted on by david

Valley farmers protest heavy-handed measures to protect fish

More than 25 farmers from the Fraser Valley demonstrated outside the Department of Fisheries and Oceans (DFO) headquarters in downtown Vancouver Tuesday, saying their ability to farm is being hurt because endangered fish species have colonized ditches.

See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in proven science based, fish protection.

Farmers from Agassiz, Chillliwack and other parts of the Valley said fisheries officers are unreasonably restricting them from clearing or dredging ditches because they’ve been deemed fish habitat.

Ditches that aren’t kept clear can flood farmland, raise the water table and degrade the ability to grow crops or graze cattle, farmers said.

“I’m concerned for my farmland,” said Agassiz dairy farmer Gary Wikkerink, adding the allotted time each fall to conduct work in fish streams is too short.

Protesters brought two calves to the protest Tuesday to emphasize their point.

“It’s caused a lot of concern in the Agassiz area,” said Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation B.C. director Jordan Bateman, who organized the protest on behalf of farmers.

He said they want consistent enforcement of Fisheries Act rules that require setbacks and protection of fish-bearing streams.

“Fisheries officers seem to have a lot of discretion in how they interpret it,” he said. “That really bothers them.”

Bateman said farmers want to influence the outcome of Ottawa’s expected rewrite of the Fisheries Act, which environmental groups fear will seriously weaken  fish habitat safeguards.

“It’s coming down to the usual battle between big business and environmental values,” he said. “Nobody is looking at how it affects small farm property owners.”

The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation has launched a petition calling for Fisheries Act reform to support farmers.

Farmers aren’t the only ones affected.

One Agassiz home owner said a new 30-metre construction setback from a creek that runs through his land means he would not have space to rebuild if his house ever burns down.

“If they get the setback they want, it makes the my value of my place disappear,” Alan Callander said. “It makes it worthless.”

Wilderness Committee policy director Gwen Barlee said farmers may have some legitimate concerns over fishery issues.

“But we don’t want to be rolling back environmental standards,” she said. “If we can’t protect fish habitat, there’s no way to protect fish.”

Ecojustice staff scientist Susan Pinkus said recovery strategies launched by the federal fisheries department to protect two endangered species found in small Valley streams – the Salish sucker and the Nooksack dace – may have angered farmers, because the department mishandled communications with those affected.

She said only one per cent of the critical habitat of the Salish sucker is in ditches, although some streams also run through farms, triggering large setbacks.

Fisheries and Oceans Canada officials could not be reached for comment.

– files from Jeff Nagel

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