By: John Durben
Employees from the US Fish and Wildlife Service from the Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery located in Warm Springs, Georgia came to Shawano, WI., yesterday. The purpose of their visit to Wisconsin was to gather some Sturgeon eggs to take back to their hatchery in Georgia.
The Sturgeon population is being threatened in some of the southern states due to over-harvest or the construction of dams which has changed the various water levels or access to spawning areas.
The Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery has been working closely with the Tennessee Wildlife Resource Agency, Georgia Department of Natural Resources, and Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in an effort to reverse this trend. The Wisconsin native fish hatched in Georgia will be released in the Lower French Broad River in Tennessee and the Coosa River in Georgia according to Hatchery Manager, Carlos Echevarria.
(L) Sturgeon eggs are treated in a clay solution to keep them from clumping. Note that
they are being stirred with an Eagle feather. (R) Warm Springs National Fish Hatchery
Manager, Carlos Echevarra with a pitcher of Sturgeon eggs.
(L) Sturgeon eggs poured into one of the jars which will eventually be placed in the
portable hatchery.
(R) The portable hatchery can handle 12 jars of Sturgeon eggs. Six jars on each side.
Echevarra says he like to put 500 eggs in each Jar.
(L) Kathlina Alford, Conservation Associate from the Tennessee Aquarium
Conservation Institute works on an egg sample. (R) The portable hatchery
is equipped with a cooling system as well as a heating system to keep the water
temperature just right for the eggs on the long trip back to Georgia.
In the back of the hatchery there is a portable generator to generate electricity
to operate the hatchery as well.
Click here – to learn more about this joint project.
WCSFO photos by: John Durben and Carlos Echevarra
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