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Category: Fish Habitat News

If you have questions about natural fish habitat, fish structure, fish attractors, artificial fish habitat or Growing big fish, this is the Structurespot.
Here you will find information about fishiding artificial fish habitat, as well as all the others. From stories about sinking train cars and planes, to planting natural plants, we can talk about it here. Show us your own contraptions and how they are working out. Send us your pics of your structure and get advice on all aspects of this growing industry.

International Investigation of Canada’s Farmed Fish Operations

Posted on by david

For Immediate Release, February 7, 2012

Contact:Jeff Miller, Center for Biological Diversity, (415) 669-7357
Alexandra Morton, Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society, (250) 974-7086
Chief Bob Chamberlin, Kwikwasu’tinuxw Haxwa’mis First Nation, (250) 974-8282
Zeke Grader, Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, (415) 561-5080 x 224

Petition Seeks International Investigation of Canada’s Farmed Fish Operations, Protections for Wild Salmon

NAFTA Panel Asked to Investigate Canadian Violation of Wildlife Law

SAN FRANCISCO— Conservation, fishing and native groups in Canada and the United States filed a formal petition today requesting an international investigation into Canada’s failure to protect wild salmon in British Columbia from disease and parasites in industrial fish feedlots. The petition was submitted to the Commission for Environmental Cooperation under the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation — an environmental side agreement to the North American Free Trade Agreement — and seeks enforcement of Canada’s Fisheries Act.

“The Canadian inquiry into the collapse of Fraser River sockeye, the largest salmon-producing river in the world, suggests the primarily Norwegian-owned British Columbia salmon-farming industry exerts trade pressures that exceed Canada’s political will to protect wild salmon,” said biologist Alexandra Morton with the Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society. “Releasing viruses into native ecosystems is an irrevocable threat to biodiversity, yet Canada seems to have no mechanism to prevent salmon-farm diseases from afflicting wild salmon throughout the entire North Pacific.”

Canada has permitted more than 100 industrial salmon feedlots in British Columbia to operate along wild salmon migration routes, exposing ecologically and economically valuable salmon runs to epidemics of disease, parasites, toxic chemicals and concentrated waste. The petition documents Canada’s failure to enforce the Fisheries Act in allowing industrial aquaculture to erode the capacity of ecosystems to support wild salmon. The proliferation of salmon feedlots is linked to dramatic declines in British Columbia’s wild salmon populations and the detection of a lethal salmon virus.

“Fish farms in Canada are an unholy marriage between various levels of the Canadian governments and foreign-owned companies,” said Chief Bob Chamberlain of the Kwikwasu’tinuxw Haxwa’mis First Nation. “We continue to explore, identify and act upon whatever means possible to rid our traditional territories of open net cage fish farms.”

“The Canadian government’s disregard for wild salmon stocks in pandering to multinational salmon farming corporations is outrageous,” said Zeke Grader, director of the Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations. “Salmon feedlots put wild salmon, the communities that depend upon them, a billion-dollar fishing industry, tens of thousands of fishing jobs, and our nations’ shared natural heritage at risk of extinction.”

“Industrial salmon feedlots function as disease-breeding factories, allowing parasites and diseases to reproduce at unnaturally high rates,” said Jeff Miller with the Center for Biological Diversity. “Marine feedlot waste flows directly, untreated, into contact with wild salmon. Putting feedlots hosting a toxic soup of bacteria, parasites, viruses and sea lice on wild fish migration routes is the height of biological insanity.”

When a country signatory to NAFTA fails to enforce its environmental laws, any party may petition for enforcement. Canada’s Fisheries Act prohibits harmful alteration, disruption or destruction of fish habitat or addition of “deleterious substances.” The petitioners seek an investigation and finding by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation that Canada is violating its Fisheries Act with regard to industrial aquaculture. Such a finding could lead to international action to force Canada to protect wild salmon, ideally by relocating fish aquaculture into contained tanks on land.

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

“Applying the Fisheries Act to fish feedlots as it is applied to all other marine users and removing feedlots from salmon migration routes will benefit wild fish and the economy of British Columbia,” said Miller. “Moving to contained aquaculture on land will benefit areas starved for employment and clean up the rivers to restore wild salmon runs.”

Scientific evidence of harm to wild salmon swimming through B.C. waters from fish feedlots has been mounting, as has public concern that feedlots could spread epidemic diseases. This is a threat that jeopardizes the health of every wild salmon run along the Pacific Coast, since U.S. and Canadian stocks mingle in the ocean and estuaries.

The Canadian petitioners are the Pacific Coast Wild Salmon Society in B.C. and Kwikwasu’tinuxw Haxwa’mis First Nation, a native tribe whose territory off northern Vancouver Island is being used by 27 Norwegian-owned salmon feedlots. The U.S. petitioners are the Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen’s Associations, the largest trade association of commercial fishers on the west coast, representing family fishing men and women. The University of Denver Environmental Law Clinic helped prepare and submit the petition.

Regulatory arms race won’t protect our fish habitat and water quality

Posted on by david

Posted: Tuesday, February 7, 2012 8:57 am

By K.C. VanNatta For The Daily Astorian

“Surprise, surprise” writes The Daily Astorian (Jan. 17), saying that Oregon’s forest protection laws are not as strong as either California’s or Washington’s,

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

Continue reading “Regulatory arms race won’t protect our fish habitat and water quality”

Maine Salmon habitat making comeback

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cfjljd49 (Video)

Salmon restoration: Maine on the way to making it happen

A Maine biologist’s efforts could lead to a national Atlantic salmon recovery.

By Deirdre Fleming dfleming@mainetoday.com
Staff Writer

AVON – With a makeshift air gun fashioned with duct tape and a gas engine on a home-rigged backpack, the biologists with the Department of Marine Resources laughed as they blasted holes for hatchery eggs into a rocky tributary of the Sandy. But their work could be a part of a long-sought Atlantic salmon solution.

click image to enlarge

Paul Christman, a biologist with the Department of Marine Resources in Hallowell, places salmon eggs in a tributary of the Sandy River in Avon. With Christman are, from left, Jed Wright, with the Gulf of Maine Coastal Program, Craig Knights and Chris Domina, with U.S. Fish and Wildlife.

Photos by Gregory Rec/Staff Photographer

click image to enlarge

Salmon eggs are placed in a tube, where they will sink to the river bottom and be covered over with rocks when the tube is pulled out.

Biologist Paul Christman quietly has planted Atlantic salmon eggs in Maine rivers for three years, but in another two years his project could move to the forefront of the national Atlantic salmon recovery effort. Already the project makes Maine a leader in North America in salmon recovery, said Joan Trial, Maine’s senior salmon biologist.

“Salmon restoration has been going on quite a while. Paul is coming up with a way to produce more (salmon) spending more time in a natural environment as opposed to a hatchery. There is some strong evidence that these fish may be more successful surviving out at sea. The more time they spend in their natural habitat, the more imprinted they will be to it. This could be a piece to the puzzle, and a very intriguing piece,” said Trial.

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

Salmon were first listed as threatened by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2000 in a small portion of Maine. Then in 2009, the list was expanded and the salmon’s status elevated to endangered.

Trial said the first few years Maine stocked fry in its rivers, there were encouraging results. But that was 10 years ago, and while the removal of dams since then has led to sea-run fish like alewives and herring running up Maine rivers once again, the salmon’s return has been slow.

In addition, those salmon returning are not all wild. And to be taken off the endangered species list, Maine must have wild Atlantic salmon returning to rivers here.

Currently the service is working on a recovery plan that maps out what is needed to delist the salmon. That plan will go to public comment later this year, said Antonio Bentivoglio, the service’s Atlantic salmon recovery coordinator in Maine.

But it will take at least 10 years for the necessary criteria to be met for the salmon to be delisted to threatened and then endangered status, Bentivoglio said.

“For delisting, we have to minimize the hatchery influence, so the hatchery won’t be stocking millions of par and smolts. Then we’ll have much great confidence that they are wild fish,” Bentivoglio said. “Once we get to threatened status, then we’ll have a plan in place to slowly decrease the number of hatchery fish that go out. We want to slowly reduce it, so we can assess the impact, and hopefully wild fish will increase.”

ON THE LIST

First the Atlantic salmon need to show returns of at least 6,000 in its historic ranges: Merrymeeting Bay, the Penobscot River and the Downeast rivers.

In 2010 in the Downeast rivers, just 164 Atlantic salmon returned; in the Penobscot River there were only 1,316; and 14 in Merrymeeting Bay (the Androscoggin and Kennebec rivers), Bentivoglio said.

So the recovery effort has a long way to go.

Whether Christman’s egg planting project can get DMR there is unknown. But there is a lot of hope in the offices at USFW and the Maine fishery agency because the salmon that result from the eggs he plants are considered “more wild” than the fry stocked from hatchery raised eggs.

The salmon that emerge from the eggs Christman plants are considered wild enough to be counted when the service considers whether to downgrade salmon from endangered to threatened, Bentivoglio said.

But the salmon’s international plight is complicated. Scientists still do not know why their marine survival is low, in some cases as low as 50 percent.

“(Christman’s eggs) should be more viable in their natural environment than the hatchery produced smolts. There should be more going out to sea. But we’re not sure what’s going on with marine survival and why marine survival has been so low. Something is going on out in the ocean that the United States, Iceland, Canada and Greenland are trying to figure out, too,” said Trial in Maine’s Bureau of Sea Run Fisheries and Habitat.

OUT TO SEA

The first egg planting done by Christman was in 2009. But in the Atlantic salmon’s life cycle, those fish won’t return to their native rivers, where the salmon emerge from the eggs until 2014. At that point, everyone at DMR will be watching to see if they do. If all goes well, lots of salmon should return.

In 2009, Christman planted 130,000 in the Sandy River; in 2010, he increased the number to 450,000; and again to 860,000 last year. This year, 1 million Atlantic salmon eggs will be planted in salmon habitat in Maine.

His work has shown success with survival rates. The emergence rate from eggs is upward of 40 to 50 percent in some places, he said, which is as good as egg planting projects anywhere.

But the telltale sign will be if the salmon return in 2014. Christman thinks they will return from the sea and run up Maine rivers to where he has planted eggs.

“The idea is that they are more in tune with the river than hatchery fish. Their performance should be better, and their survival better. And from what we’re seeing, yes, they are behaving much better,” Christman said.

Staff Writer Deirdre Fleming can be contacted at 791-6452 or at:

dfleming@pressherald.com

Twitter: Flemingpph

Suspended Spawning Platforms

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

https://docs.google.com/a/nmbfn.com/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=bm1iZm4uY29tfHd3d3xneDo3ZDEyNGI3NDNjYzU3Nzk4

Bluegill habitat moves to artificial products to attract more fish

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Bluegill Habitat

When you go bluegill fishing habitat is one of the key factors on your mind when deciding where to go to find fish to catch. Some bodies of waters are habitat rich with aquatic plants, dead falls, stumps and so on. Other ponds either never had good structures for habitat or they rotted and decomposed long ago. One option is to sink more structures with items from around the house for little or no cost such as old Christmas trees, pallets or scrap wood formed into a 3D design. These structures are great for a while, but they eventually break down or change until they are no longer a desired location for bluegill to gather.

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

http://www.bluegillworld.com/bluegill-habitat.html

Residents fear shoreline project will smother reef

Posted on by david

Structures a home for sea creatures

Three acres of coquina and worm rock could be covered by a beach renourishment project.
Three acres of coquina and worm rock could be covered by a beach renourishment project. / Photos courtesy of Karen Holloway-Adkins

A new beach renourishment project is in the works for Brevard County, and conservation-minded residents are worried that trucking in the sand will bury a local treasure.

The Brevard County Mid Reach Shore Protection Project aims to dump 573,000 cubic yards of sand onto the 7.8-mile section of beach between Patrick Air Force Base and Indialantic. By adding up to 20 feet of beach, three acres of coquina and worm rock reef will be smothered.

But marine biologist Karen Holloway-Adkins knows the reef is more than just a pile of rocks.

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

“Worm rock doesn’t get much credit. A lot of people don’t even know what’s out there.” said Holloway-Adkins. “It’s a full-on living reef.”

The large, cauliflower-shaped boulders are not rocks, but the protective sand structures secreted by colonies of bristle worms of the family Sabellariidae (pronounced “SAH—bell—AIR– I—dee”).

But the worms are just a small piece of the reefs’ complexity.

“The algae growing on the reef provides food for turtles and fish.

“The structure is excellent habitat for crabs, blennies, sheepshead, snook, pompano and more,” said Holloway-Adkins, who lives in Indialantic. “I’ve even seen an octopus under one of the ledges.”

Holloway helps run a nonprofit research company, East Coast Biologists, Inc., and was hired by the County to aid in an Environmental Impact Assessment for the project.

Her work revolves specifically around the green sea turtles which feed almost exclusively on the red, green and brown algae growing on the reef. She’s logged countless hours snorkeling the reefs in the Mid Reach zone — when the underwater visibility permits it.

“The juvenile greens will forage and hang around the intertidal zone, sometimes in less than two feet of water.”

The high-energy intertidal zone — the area dappled with small tide pools near shore — is threatened most by the filling project.

“Those pools are important for gamefish,” Holloway-Adkins said. “That’s where you’ll see schools of baby pompano. It’s an important nursery.”

The threat to gamefish and the local ecology has Space Coast fishing authority, Captain Rodney Smith, reeling with concern.

“It’s an extremely unique habitat because this reef is also part of the Indian River Lagoon estuary,” said Smith, a fishing guide for over 20 years and founder of Coastal Angler Magazine. “It’s all connected ecologically. It’s such a treasure.”

Smith conducts guided surf-fishing clinics and recognizes the significance of the reefs for the recreational fishery. As one who makes his living from the area’s natural splendor, he empathizes with business and home owners who are faced with protecting their assets on the beach.

“Change is definitely difficult,” Smith said. “But the quality of life drops during these projects, the beach as we love it is destroyed and the degradation to the habitat is profound.”

As far as the economics of the fill, Smith would like to see changes in how these projects are carried out. With Florida’s dynamic coastline of shifting sand dunes, replenished beaches can be stripped away by hurricanes and strong storms.

“Millions of taxpayer’s dollars are swept into the ocean in a day,” Smith said.

“It’s like throwing sand into a volcano. We need to reassess how we’re managing our beaches.”

Smith’s wish may somewhat come true.

Mike McGarry, the Beach Project Coordinator for Brevard, says that the Mid Reach project is a one-of-a-kind operation designed by the Army Core of Engineers.

“The Mid Reach project is vastly different from a typical beach renourishment. We’ve made sure a large weight has been placed on the environmental consequences.”

Sand will be harvested offshore, stockpiled in Port Canaveral and placed on the beach by dump truck. There won’t be any rusty pipes snaking through the sand from offshore pumping barges, as in previous filling ventures.

“Less than 10 percent of the rocks in the Mid Reach zone will be covered, allowing 90 percent of the habitat to remain,” McGarry said.

“We don’t discount that there won’t be an impact to the environment, but we’ve taken all the steps possible to minimize that impact.”

To mitigate for any damage to the reef that can’t be avoided, the county and the ACOE have devised an artificial reef system that will be placed in parts of the Mid Reach stretch.

Coquina rocks embedded in concrete-block grids will be laid by crane in 12-15 feet of water — after the fill is completed.

The reef habitat in the Mid Reach zone has been designated as an “Essential Fish Habitat” by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which requires the involved parties to take precautions to ensure the health of the ecosystem, including the design of these ‘mitigation reefs’.

But they’re still not the real, living thing.

And although keeping the surf-side infrastructure intact is vital to the area’s economy, Rodney Smith feels that healthy reefs are a part of our culture that can’t be bought.

“You can’t destroy a natural reef and then try to fix it,” Smith said. “They’re priceless.”

Written by
Matt Badolato
For FLORIDA TODAY

Mississippi fish attractor rules and regulations for placing fish habitat

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

http://www.mdwfp.com/media/41179/f11_3428_sport_fish.pdf

DNR continues fish crib project on Cedar Lake

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It’s a cold crisp Saturday morning in mid-January and the ice off the north boat landing on Cedar Lake is alive with the sounds of chain saws and Bobcats.

 image
Volunteers line up the lumber for a fish crib. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.

It’s a cold crisp Saturday morning in mid-January and the ice off the north boat landing on Cedar Lake is alive with the sounds of chain saws and Bobcats.

On the horizon, shantytowns harbor diehard fishermen trying their luck through 16 inches of ice. However, the largest and loudest population on the ice this morning consists of volunteers from Star Prairie Fish & Game and the Cedar Lake Management District, along with concerned local anglers, who are working together with staff from the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources constructing 45 new fish cribs.

John Bush, a volunteer from SPF&G, sits behind the wheel of a four wheeler waiting for a crew of his fellow volunteers to position one of the completed cribs on his sled. His job is to tow cribs to one of three staging areas located on the south end of the lake.

Wearing a fashionable blue hardhat and bright green safety vest, Barbara Scott with the DNR props herself up against several rods of rebar.

Surrounding her are numerous cribs in various stages of completion. They look like miniature log houses with no roofs stuffed full of brush and tree branches.

Scott explains part of the process; The logs are placed on top of each other leaving about an eight-inch gap between each layer.

“Once the logs are in place, we bend the tops of the rebar over to hold it all together,” Scott said. “Then we place branches in between the layers to create the fish habitat. After the cribs have been towed into place, we tie cinder blocks on top to prevent them from moving once they sink.”

The cribs will sit in place out on the ice until spring thaw. As the ice melts, the cribs slowly settle into place at the bottom of the lake.

Fish techs from the DNR were out on the lake in the fall determining the precise locations where the cribs would be located.

Daryl Berg, with a pipe in hand, is hard at work bending rebar. Besides being a self-appointed “log loader and brush builder,” Berg is a local fisherman who makes time to help with this project because he “cares about the fish habitat.”

Marty Engel is a biologist with the DNR’s Lower Chippewa and Central Wisconsin Fisheries Team. He operates out of the DNR office in Baldwin and this morning he’s in charge of making sure the cribs are correctly constructed and delivered to the correct locations. The plan is to sink up to 500 cribs throughout Cedar Lake over the course of the next 10 to 20 years.

“Cedar Lake is clear enough to grow weeds in the spring, but by around June 15th, the algae begins to come on strong. When the lights go out, the plants don’t grow,” Engel said. “By mid-July the weeds are starting to die back and by August they’ve all but died off. Cribs are one way to create alternate habitat in green lakes.”

Creating log cribs provides a place for fish to migrate to when the weeds die off. According to Engel, the center of the cribs provides cover for smaller fish like bluegills, perch and crappies, while the extended branches on the perimeter provide hunting areas for larger species like northern pike, walleyes and muskies.

“Once they go through the ice, fish will gravitate to them instantaneously,” he said.

The results of the project have been promising.

“There wasn’t a lot of good pan fishing on this lake 10 years ago,” Engel recalls, “But now you can tell the results just by seeing the number of ice shacks out on the lake and talking with the people.”

Ever wonder why all the shacks seem to congregate in just a few areas on the lake? Individual cribs are installed in “colonies” to mimic habitat like a weed bed.

By the end of the day, Cedar Lake will be home to numerous colonies consisting of 325 individual cribs. The fish, both predator and prey, move to where the colonies are. The fishermen follow the fish resulting in a landscape of shantytowns right on top of the cribs.

Marty reports that the DNR working in conjunction with several other volunteer groups, including students from Somerset High School, is starting crib construction initiatives on two other local lakes, Bass and Glen. In addition to the winter crib construction programs, the DNR will also be creating “near-shore” structure on Bass Lake once the water opens up by dragging 80 oak trees out into the lake so that the crowns of the trees rest in about eight feet of water.

By: By Tom Lindfors, New Richmond News

Massachusetts- loans of up to $50,000 each to small boat fishermen

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Fish Talk in the News

Atlantic cod (Photo credit: MA Division of Marine Fisheries).Atlantic cod (Photo credit: MA Division of Marine Fisheries).

Atlantic sturgeon listed as endangered species

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By , Published: February 1

Atlantic sturgeon, one of the most expensive and imperiled fish in the world, made it onto the endangered species list Wednesday.

Once plentiful, sturgeon populations in the U.S. and across the world have plummeted since humans targeted them for their caviar.

Officials at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Service listed the New York Bight, Chesapeake Bay, Carolina and South Atlantic populations as endangered, and the Gulf of Maine population as threatened. The move could lead to new protections for the fish’s habitat along the East Coast. See the dozens of unique artificial fish habitat models, fish attractors and fish cover used at fishiding.com, the leader in  science based, proven, fish protection.

“Atlantic sturgeon have been teetering on the brink of extinction since they were severely depleted by fishing in the late 1800s,” said Ellen K. Pikitch, executive director of the Institute for Ocean Conservation Science at Stony Brook University. She added that now these populations will enjoy “the full force” of Endangered Species Act, “I am more optimistic than ever before that future generations will be able to see these ancient fish thriving once again off the shores of the East Coast.”

Some species of American sturgeon that have declined are now making a comeback. TheTennessee Aquarium in Chattanooga has led an effort to reintroduce 115,000 lake sturgeon into the Tennessee and Cumberland rivers over the past decade. Sturgeon on those waters went extinct in the 1970s.

Anna George, the aquarium’s director of conservation, said people can identify with sturgeon because their life history is closer to that of humans than most fish.

“They don’t reproduce until they’re teenagers, and they can live for a really long time,” she said, noting that lake sturgeon live to be as old as 150.

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