Snowflakes painted a picturesque winter scene Thursday morning throughout Demopolis.

However, the cold weather didn’t stop eager Demopolis High students, along with the Army Corps of Engineers, from working to create fish habitats along the river.

“The snow is not going to stop us,” Anne Cross, ranger said. “We are excited to come together as a community to create fish habitat.”

The students and USACE workers bundled old Christmas trees that will soon be sunk in different areas along the river. The trees make great habitats for fish like crappie.

Pieces of iron will be tied to the trees that will sink them about 10 feet or so, according to Brandon Smith from USACE.

Various participants helped to band trees together to create fish habitats. Shown in the picture are Jason Cassity, Austin Thornbough, Brandon Smith, Marshall Thomas, Joy Snellgrove, Dakota Cunningham, Blake Bowden, Ben Sherrod and Anne Cross (kneeling).

Demopolis High school FFA club and agriculture department worked on the project.

Students in the high school FFA club and agriculture department worked on the project.

Teacher Joy Snellgrove said experience teaches students several valuable skills by granting them this hands-on experience.

“It teaches them more about conservation efforts,” she said. “Also they learn job skills and get to see other job opportunities out there.”

Students thought the project was very fun, despite Thursday’s cold weather.

“It’s fun to do something like this and help,” Dakota Cunningham, a junior said.

Cunningham said students have been learning more about reusing items in class and this project gave them a chance to get help in the community.

Later this month, there will be three boats that will go out on the river to drop the trees. The trees were all donated from people throughout Demopolis. Dozens of unique habitat models at fishiding.com

Also partnering with DHS and the USACE for the project is Alabama Power, the city of Demopolis, Tractor Supply, the U.S. Coast Guard and volunteers of Foscue Park.By Brittney Knox

Webster Lake weed kill devastates plant life.

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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.

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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

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

Re-snagging the Goulburn to increase native fish habitat and improve recreational fishing opportunities between Seymour and Nagambie.

The Goulburn Broken Catchment Management Authority (CMA) is working along the Goulburn River between Seymour and Nagambie in the coming weeks to increase the amount of large woody habitat, or snags, in the Goulburn River, with the aim to increase in the native fish population and diversity in this section of the river.

Funded by the Victorian Government, through revenue from Recreational Fishing Licenses to improve recreational fishing in Victoria and the Goulburn Broken CMA, the snags are being placed in the Goulburn River, downstream of the Hume Freeway Bridge near Seymour. The works that are being carried out will lead to an increase in habitat for native fish in the area and an improvement in catch rates for recreational fishers.

Goulburn Broken CMA River Health Projects Coordinator, Mr Jim Castles explains, “Native fish rely heavily upon instream habitat such as tree roots, logs and branches called ‘snags’. Since European settlement, our streams and rivers have been de-snagged, in the belief this would increase water flow and quality. We now know this is not the case.”

Native fish ecologists from the Murray Darling Basin Authority estimate that fish populations have declined by 90% since European settlement. There have been many threats to native fish including removal of in-stream and riparian habitat and flow modification.

Snags are the inland equivalent of coastal reefs and provide habitat for native fish and other animals such as tortoises and native water rats. Native fish use them to shelter from fast currents and sunlight and take refuge from predation. Native fish also use snags as feeding and spawning sites, and as nursery areas for juvenile fish.

Recent fish surveys within the Murray Darling Basin have found that 80% of Murray Cod are found within 1 metre of a snag. All large bodied freshwater native fish use snags as habitat.

“Re-snagging is a sound management intervention we can use to restore native fish habitat to our waterways, and results so far suggest that native fish populations respond strongly as a result. Re snagging on its own, however, is unlikely to be the sole driver in native fish recovery in the Goulburn River. The key is to better manage our riparian zones by fencing to restrict stock access and protect native vegetation, and revegetating degraded areas so there will be a constant natural supply of snags in the future” says Mr. Castles. 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.

The areas to be re-snagged have been identified via in-stream habitat mapping undertaken in 2011 by scientists from the Arthur Rylah Institute (ARI) in the Goulburn River between the Mitchellstown and Hume Freeway Bridges to identify areas that have a low density of snags. The sites where the Goulburn CMA carry out re-snagging are being selected based on priority zones identified by ARI as a result of this mapping, and access to the waterway within these zones.

The fallen trees used for the re-snagging project have been sourced from a number of nearby locations, including the Nagambie Bypass and a public reserve in Seymour. The Goulburn Broken CMA and its contractors work to rigorous guidelines that have been developed in other locations where re-snagging has been carried out over many years.

“The snags will be secured safely and positioned in a way that does not block the river channel to ensure fishing boats can still travel along the river,” explains Mr Castles “The snags will have very little or no net impact on water flow and will enhance native fish habitat, thereby leading to a more robust native fish community, which will result in huge benefits for recreational fishers in our region.”

This project is funded by the Department of Primary Industries Recreational Fishing Licence Grants Scheme, which uses revenue raised from the sale of recreational fishing licences to fund projects that directly improve recreational fishing in Victoria.

Snags on the riverbank prior to placement. Photo: Jim Castles, Goulburn Broken CMA

Future fisheries panel to meet today

The 14-member Future Fisheries Improvement Program’s Citizen Review Panel will meet today at Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in Helena, 1420 East Sixth Ave., beginning at 8:30 a.m.

The panel will review project applications for the winter funding cycle and prepare recommendations that the FWP Commission will review in March.

The future fisheries panel is appointed by the governor and makes recommendations on funding for projects to restore or improve Montana’s wild and native fish habitat. 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.

The panel will review 13 applications requesting about $380,000. The public may attend this meeting, or review and comment on the grant applications on the FWP website at fwp.mt.gov, click on the Fishing page. To comment, select “Public Comment.”

Individuals or groups with opportunities to restore or improve wild and native fish habitat may apply for Future Fisheries Improvement Program funds. Landowners and other project partners usually share project costs, which extends Future Fisheries Improvement Program dollars. Applicants are encouraged to work with local area FWP fisheries biologists.  The next deadline to submit project applications is June 1.

For more information on the Future Fisheries Improvement Program, call 444-2432, or send an email tomlere@mt.gov.