Tribal Fish Hatchery Programs of the
Northern Great Lakes Region
- Giving Something Back to the Resource -
To review additional information regarding each tribe, please click on the tribal programs listed below:
Bad River | Keweenaw Bay | Lac Courte Oreilles | Lac du Flambeau | Lac Vieux Desert | Leech Lake | Menominee | Nunns Creek | Red Cliff | Red Lake | Sokaogon | St. Croix | White Earth
The following information was reprinted from the Tribal Hatcheries of The Great Lakes Region, published by the Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission.
Indian communities have traditionally depended on a healthy and abundant fishery for subsistence. Today, the importance of the Great Lakes and inland fisheries to tribes is reflected in the growth of tribal hatcheries throughout the Great Lakes region and the subsequent re-stocking efforts. The prevalence of new hatchery operations on reservations and the expansion of existing facilities indicates that a healthy fishery and commitment to the resource is high on the tribes' priority list.
Tribal fish hatcheries play an important role in co-managing inter-jurisdictional fishery resources. Great Lakes tribes have responded to the modern day challenges of multi-jurisdictional resource management in their unique role as users and managers on over 900,000 acres of reservation inland lakes, treaty ceded territories and the northern Great Lakes.
There are several tribal fish hatcheries and/or rearing components in the Great Lakes region. The Red Lake reservation and Lac du Flambeau reservation hatcheries are the oldest, being established in 1929 and 1936, respectively. These and other programs, range in size from an incubator system and stocking of fry, up to fully staffed hatcheries rearing fry, fingerlings, yearlings, and larger fish for stocking or market. Some tribal hatchery programs have been in existence for over 70 years, while others are just beginning. Approximately ten different species of fish are reared at these facilities. These are walleye, musky, lake sturgeon, largemouth bass, whitefish, white sucker, lake trout, brook trout, brown trout, and rainbow trout. Each hatchery has their own program for the species of fish they are rearing.The Great Lakes region's hatcheries stock millions of fish into reservation and treaty ceded waters and Lake Superior, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron. These reservation hatcheries are serving tribal subsistence and commercial needs and are also contributing significant fish stocks to reservation waters fished by over 95% non-Indian anglers.
The Bad River Tribal Hatchery, (now dubbed the Raymond “Snooty Couture” Fish Hatchery) has been in operation since 1968. Throughout this time, the hatchery has concentrated its activity around the culture of walleye fry and fingerlings for the purpose of supplementing existing natural walleye reproduction within reservation waters. Hatchery operations and renovations were vastly expanded from 1999-2003. In addition to walleye, the Bad River Hatchery also raises yellow perch and lake sturgeon. There has also been a large increase in walleye fingerling and extended growth production as result of recent improvements to the facilities.
During its first decade of operation, the Bad River Tribal Fish Hatchery utilized "hand-me-down" equipment. During the past 11 years, a number of significant improvements have been made to the facility that have increased its reliability, improved working conditions for hatchery crew members and has progressively increased walleye fry and fingerling production levels. In addition, the increase of hatchery capacities has enhanced the ability of the tribe to culture yellow perch, white suckers and lake sturgeon.
The Bad River tribal fish hatchery possesses the capacity to incubate and hatch 240 quarts of walleye and white sucker eggs. Surface water pumped from the Kakagon River and groundwater from a 6" well provides the hatchery with an ample supply of high quality water.
The hatchery also possesses 3.1 surface acres of pond space for walleye and perch fingerling production. Surface water obtained from the Kakagon River has provided a highly fertile environment for the production of zooplankton that are a major food source for young walleye and perch. The Bad River tribal hatchery produces 500,000 walleye fingerlings and produces an average of 12 million and 1.2 million walleye and perch fry annually. Future plans include rearing pond expansion potentially doubling the fingerling and extended growth production of walleye and perch.
The Keweenaw Bay Indian Community has invested over $650,000 in this facility to date, with over half of these funds stemming from gaming profits, an indication of the tribe's commitment to this fishery. This commitment involves not only re-stocking efforts, but tribal participation in fishery assessments and cooperative work towards achieving a healthy fishery habitat. To date, this facility has stocked over 680,000 yearling (5-9") lake trout and 80,000 brook trout.
In 1995 and 1997, the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to temporarily utilize the Keweenaw Bay Tribal Hatchery as a lake and brook trout isolation facility. The operational plan calls for the transfer of wild lake trout and coaster brook trout eggs directly to this tribal facility. Once the fish pass a two-year disease clearance period, they will be transferred (as future broodstock) to other Federal/State hatcheries. If this broodstock rejuvenation program works as planned, the Tribe and the Service may decide to continue this program.
This project was of special importance to Ashland FWCO because of the long term commitment we have had in developing a broodstock management plan for wild lake trout and brook trout in the Great Lakes. It was during the summer of 1990 that Frank Stone (Ashland FWCO Fishery Biologist) first presented his idea of seeking assistance from one of the tribal hatchery programs to help the Service introduce wild lake trout gametes into the National Fish Hatchery system.
The Nunns Creek facility has approximately 75 square feet of indoor rearing space and 1,200 square feet outdoors. In addition, four ponds totaling approximately 250 acres are used for walleye fingerling production. These ponds consist of an 8 and 15 acre pond used to culture fathead minnows in addition to a 200 acre pond used for both the culture of fathead minnows and subsequent extended walleye fingerling production. A newly purchased 40 acre drainable pond is used to culture summer walleye fingerlings.
This facility has the potential to produce approximately 1,000,000 two inch walleyes and 100,000 six to ten inch walleyes. These fish are stocked into all three of the upper Great Lakes in order to promote and enhance tribal commercial fishing in these areas.
Walleye eggs are typically collected in mid to late April mostly from Munuscong Lake of the St. Mary’s River system. Approximately 2-3 million eggs are collected. After about 30 days, hatching occurs and the fry are transported to rearing ponds about 30 miles away. In 2005 approximately 872,168 walleye fingerlings were stocked from this facility (772,510 two inch and 99,658 eight inch walleye). Nearly all of these fish were stocked into the 1836 treaty ceded waters of the Great Lakes.
The Michigan Department of Natural Resources annually stocks 250,000 chinook salmon above the facility at Nunns Creek. As the chinook salmon become sexually mature and return, they are guided up a fish ladder into a large raceway where biological data is recorded. The indoor circular tanks have been used to hold whitefish and adult sea lamprey for a cooperative tag/recapture study.
Annual fish production is 8 to 10 million walleye fry, 50,000 walleye fingerlings, 400,000 lake whitefish fingerlings, and when the need arises, trout, bass, cisco, and panfish are also produced. In addition, upwards of 20,000,000 white sucker eggs are collected annually. These eggs are incubated, hatched and sold to bait growers who in turn rear and sell them as fishing bait.
All of the game fish are stocked back into lakes and streams on the reservation for tribal subsistence harvest as well as tribal and non-tribal recreational fishing. Whitefish support a tribal commercial fishery and other nongame fish species are also commercially harvested by tribal members. A commercial bait harvest industry, regulated by the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe also exists.
The hatchery's story has been one of growth and improvement. One of the first major improvements was the construction of a dam on Mud Creek, adjacent to the hatchery. The dam created a reservoir which supplies a free-flowing source of water to the hatchery. A new fish hatchery was constructed in 1991 to replace the old facility, which had become structurally unsound. The new facility is equipped with 200 egg hatching jars, which yields a total incubating capacity of 75 million walleye eggs. In 1997 a second building was constructed to house a demonstration re-circulating aquaculture unit to raise yellow perch.
Each spring, the Red Lake Fisheries Association and the Red Lake Department of Natural Resources operate a spawning station at the Blackduck River, which is the principal tributary to Lower Red Lake. The eggs collected at the station are taken to the hatchery for incubation and rearing and are stocked on reservation waters where prescribed.In the future we may relocate the Red Lake hatchery to the Red Lake River, which is the only outlet to the Red Lakes. This would assist hatchery operations with increasing the water quality of the water used at the hatchery and the thermal regime would closely mimic the primary receiving body of water of fish reared at the facility. Operations may be expanded to include rearing of lake whitefish, goldeye, and lake sturgeon, which have been of significant important to the Band in the past.
Muskellunge are stocked to provide a trophy fisheries in one lake and Lake Sturgeon are stocked in two lakes, as a multi agencies cooperative effort to restore this culturally significant species to the Red River Watershed. Also, Black Crappie have been stocked to restore some pan fish populations due to winterkill loss.Like other tribal hatcheries, the facility has continued to improve and expand over the years. Expansion included the construction of four - ½ acre rearing ponds capable of producing 140,000 walleye fingerlings per year, a settling pond, a lake pumping station, and a well head filtration protection unit. In addition, the hatchery has improved both site security and site maintenance. The fishery program also operates 10-15 natural ponds for an additional 70,000 walleye fingerlings per year.
In addition, new technologies that are being applied to walleye and other cool/coldwater species culture will soon be implemented. The current goal is to stabilize production at approximately 50,000 fingerlings per year throughout the fish hatchery's rearing pond complex and natural ponds.
The tribe is actively managing seventy four lakes. Current fishery management operations include electrofishing lakes to help determine the level of natural reproduction, lake population assessments, winterkill and stocking assessments, and creel census.
The Lac Courte Oreilles hatchery houses egg incubation systems and three, clay-lined ponds, approximately one acre in size each. The facility has the capability of incubating approximately 7,000,000 eggs in an egg battery with McDonald-type hatching jars.Production of extended growth walleyes (6-8”) has been the focus of the hatchery in recent years. The capacity of the rearing ponds is about 10,000 of these larger fish. In 2005, the LCO Fish Hatchery had a record year. Utilizing all available pond space (including several outlying rearing ponds) LCO was able to stock 24,270 extended growth walleye into reservation area lakes. Yellow perch, white suckers, and muskellunge have also been produced at the facility. Upon completion of a new indoor production building, lake sturgeon may also be raised.
The fish culture facility includes a 315 McDonald jar hatchery, three walleye and muskellunge fry tanks, a start tank facility which includes six Heath incubators, six aluminum fry troughs, six 3'x 3'x 15' start tanks, ten 200' x 6' x 4' outside concrete race-ways, and twenty acre to acre earthen ponds. The walleye, muskellunge, fathead minnows and bass are raised in the earthen ponds to fingerling sizes, while the trout are raised in the raceway facilities.
The majority of the fish are raised to stock the reservation's 158 lakes and 34 miles of creeks, rivers and streams. The rainbow trout are produced for sale. Revenues generated are utilized to support the tribal Natural Resources Department.
From 1960 to 1995, the Lac du Flambeau Fish Culture Program has produced over 492 million walleye fry, 5.6 million walleye fingerlings, 2.2 million muskellunge fry, 107,000 muskellunge fingerlings, 306,867 largemouth bass, 49,000 smallmouth bass fingerlings, 140,663 brown trout fingerlings, and 71,105 brook trout fingerlings. Approximately 343,812 pounds of rainbow trout were also produced. The stocking program benefits tribal as well as state-licensed anglers who fish the reservation lakes.
In 1993 the tribe's conservation department has been constructing four, one acre earthen ponds to replace the natural lake pond and increase the rearing capacity. Each of the ponds will have the capacity of rearing 100,000 fry to fingerling size. About five acres of land was procured for the project and landscaped for the installation of four pond catch basins and a well. The tribe is also considering branching into in-stream incubation of rainbow trout eggs for on-reservation streams.
In 1992 with the addition of three Big Redd units, a total of 902,000 walleye fry were hatched. Fifty thousand of those fry were donated to the Forest County Walleye Association. Remaining fry were released into area lakes speared by the Sokaogon Chippewa.
In 1993, three million walleye eggs were collected from speared walleye in six lakes with a resulting hatch of approximately two million walleye fry. The current hatchery is presently under re-construction. The Sokaogon Chippewa look forward to a more successful rearing seasons once the new hatchery facility is completed.
Red Cliff has developed a Lake Superior coaster brook trout broodstock (Lake Nipigon strain) consisting of three year classes of actively spawning fish. This is the only known broodstock for this strain of brook trout that is available in the U.S. The broodstock is producing up to a million production and broodstock eggs a year. Eggs and fish from the hatchery are used to stock Lake Superior by the Red Cliff Tribe as well as many other state, tribal, and private agencies. The 45’ x 100’ broodstock area consists of six large concrete raceways, a water quality lab, and an information center.
Red Cliff is actively involved in raising walleyes throughout the summer in outdoor drainable ponds. Eggs and milt are collected from tribally speared fish in the spring. The fertilized eggs are transported to the 35’ x 54’ coolwater production area for incubation in bell jars. The coolwater production area consists of a bell jar incubation battery, several fiberglass rearing tanks, brine shrimp incubation units, a 400 gallon recirculation system, feed area, and small shop room. After hatching, the walleye are placed into three outside drainable rearing ponds or into several different cooperators ponds for additional rearing. Extended growth walleyes (6-10 inches) are removed from the ponds in the fall, finclipped, and released back to the lakes were the eggs were originally collected.
For the past several years, Red Cliff has been raising Lake Superior Lake Sturgeon in a cooperative effort with the Bad River Tribe and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Sturgeon eggs are collected from adult sturgeon and brought back to the hatchery were they are incubated and hatched in the coolwater area. Sturgeon fry are fed a mixture of plankton and live brine shrimp until they are approximately two inches long. They are then converted over fresh frozen brine shrimp and bloodworms. The sturgeon are reared until they are about six inches long, microtagged, and released back into the Bad River for restoration/supplementation efforts.
The hatchery has been working on a fish/wetland pond complex behind the broodstock area for the two years. The complex design is based on the idea of using a wetland to treat the hatchery broodstock effluent water before it enters Red Cliff Creek. Effluent treatment of phosphorous and nitrates is a major concern with many fish rearing facilities. The front portion of the pond complex will also serve as a fee fishing pond for excess brook trout with the funds generated going back into the program. This wetland treatment of fish effluent treatment is a fairly new idea and has generated national attention.
In 1989, the tribe hired a biologist to lead the project. Today the tribe employs four full-time and two part-time fisheries specialists in its Natural Resources Department and has invested over $250,000 in hatchery equipment and facilities. St. Croix began collecting and incubating walleye eggs in 1990. Fisheries staff collect eggs in the spring from adult walleye netted in area lakes. The eggs hatch in three to four weeks in the Tribe’s custom incubators. Staff transport the fry to rented ponds used to grow the walleye to fingerling size. Harvest crews begin netting the fish from the ponds about six weeks later. All walleye are stocked in public lakes in Barron, Burnett, Douglas, Polk, and Washburn Counties. As of 2007, St. Croix has stocked 3.4million walleye fingerlings, 5.6million walleye fry, and 20,762 walleye yearlings into 36 lakes.
The St. Croix Natural Resources Department continues to work cooperatively with tribal, state and federal agencies as well as local community organizations to assess the needs for fishery enhancement and to meet those needs through fish production and stocking.
THE FUTURE
Maintaining healthy, abundant fisheries in the Great Lakes and the north's inland lakes is a concern of Indian and non-Indian people alike. However, it is a big job, often requiring cooperation at both agency and grassroots levels to accomplish. Working together, tribes, state and federal recourse agencies, and community lake organizations have jointly stocked and assessed area lakes in order to meet that common goal - a sound fishery. Tribal hatcheries have played a significant role in these endeavors.
In Wisconsin one of the first cooperative initiatives developed between the Cable area Fish for the Future organization and the Bad River and Red Cliff Tribes. An effort to gather and fertilize eggs from speared female walleye began in 1989 with tribal members and Cable area residents working together to milk and fertilize the eggs on the lakes and transport them to the hatcheries for incubation. Once incubated, the fry are transported back to the Cable area to rearing ponds tended by Fish for the Future or directly stocked back into the lakes from which they were taken.
Similar tribal community efforts have followed elsewhere. Red Cliff, for instance began working with the Eau Claire Conservation Club in 1992, and in 1993 Bad River worked with several Nelson Lake resort owners in Sawyer County for the first time. The Bad River hatchery also donated 600,000 Lake Superior walleye fry to the WDNR for stocking into the Chequamegon Bay.
The Sokaogon Chippewa hatchery program benefits from rearing ponds donated by a local landowner, and the St. Croix tribal hatchery has received fish from both the WDNR and USFWS for rearing to fingerling size and stocking.
Increased communications between tribal resource managers and non-Indian community members often leads to the development of positive programs such as those mentioned above. Sharing time, resources, and ideas has produced positive results for the fisheries.
To obtain additional information regarding any of these tribal hatchery programs,
you may wish to contact the following:Bad River Natural Resources Department Odanah, WI., 715-682-7123
Bureau of Indian Affairs Minneapolis, 612-713-4400
Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission Odanah, WI., 715-682-6619
Inter-Tribal Fisheries and Assessment-Nunns Creek Hatchery Sault Ste. Marie, MI., 906-632-0072
Keweenaw Bay Biological Services L'Anse, MI., 906-524-5757Lac Courte Oreilles Conservation Department Hayward, WI., 715-634-0102
Lac du Flambeau Band of Lake Superior Indians Lac du Flambeau, WI., 715-588-3303
Lac Vieux Desert Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians Watersmeet, MI., 906-358-4577
Leech Lake Reservation Business Committee Cass Lake, MN., 218-335-7400
Menominee Indian Tribe of Wisconsin Keshena, WI., 715-799-5116Nunns Creek Fishery Enhancement Facility, Hessel, Michigan, 906-440-4638
Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians Red Lake, MN., 218-679-3959
Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians Bayfield, WI., 715-779-3728
Sokaogon Chippewa-Mole Lake Crandon, WI., 715-478-7621
St. Croix Chippewa Indians of Wisconsin Hertel, WI., 715-349-2195
White Earth Reservation Business Committee Ponsford, MN., 218-573-3007
