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November/December, 2004

Genoa National Fish Hatchery Lands New Administrative Assistant

Darla is a welcomed addition to staff at Genoa NFH

The staff at Genoa is pleased to have a new administrative assistant on board. Darla Wenger, of Alma Wisconsin joined the staff on November 15th. Darla comes to us from the Regional Office Division of Human Resources in Minneapolis. Her area of expertise in personnel actions is expected to be put to use throughout the summer with the station's temporary employment programs.

Genoa in the recent past has been practicing catch and release with its administrative assistants. While this is a sound conservation principle to practice during fishing, it does tend to put the station's administrative function behind the eight ball! Genoa's administrative assistant of 23 years retired last January. Diane Zittel, our replacement for Karen, filled in after Karen from January 2004, and received a new position in the Regional Office Fisheries Division at Minneapolis August 22, 2004. We hope you all will welcome Darla to her new duty station when contacting the hatchery, and know that you will enjoy getting to know her as much as we will.

— Doug Aloisi

Genoa National Fish Hatchery Gives Coloring Books to the Children of the 107th Maintenance Company

Genoa National Fish Hatchery was happy to donate 75 coloring books to the 107th Maintenance Company of the Army National Guard based in Viroqua, Wisconsin. After seeing the coloring books at our booth during the Vernon County Fair this past September, the station was contacted by members of the 107th inquiring about the coloring books for their Christmas activities. The educational coloring books will be added to gift bags given to the children of the soldiers of the 107th and to a local Boy Scout troop. Any leftover coloring books will be shipped to members of the 107th stationed in Iraq, so that they may hand them out to Iraqi children.

— Tony Brady

Water Supply System Improvements Begin at Genoa

The Genoa National Fish Hatchery began major enhancements to its current water supply system this November, thanks to a 2004 federal budget increase initiated to repair critical water management systems in the federal fish hatchery system. Genoa currently has 3 artesian wells and 4 pumped wells that supply the hatchery with 900 gallons per minute of groundwater. Current pumped wells are inefficient because they have no method of controlling pumping rates, and have to be operated on a site-by-site basis.

Dike reconstruction associated with the addition of new pipe lines to accommodate Genoa's new wells

Project designs call for two high-capacity wells to be drilled to supply roughly 500 gallons per minute of water each. These two wells will be connected together and run as a manifold system to supply four different culture buildings and the station's pond system with water.

These water management rehabilitation projects were initiated as part of the National Fish Hatchery System's performance measures, called the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA) created in 1993. GPRA was created to count achievable and measurable goals in government service, and begin a monitoring process to examine performance.

The Genoa National Fish Hatchery was established by an act of Congress in 1932 as part of the Upper Mississippi River National Wildlife and Fish Act. Its current mission is to protect and conserve the nation's aquatic resources for the continuing benefit of the nation's people. It performs this mission by assisting with Endangered Species Recovery, native fish restoration, and fulfilling fish and aquatic species production commitments to federal, state and tribal natural resource agencies to meet management goals.

— Doug Aloisi

New Coaster Brook Trout Arrive at Genoa National Fish Hatchery

Genoa National Fish Hatchery (NFH) began its 2005 production year for Coaster Brook Trout with the reception of 60,000 Tobin Harbor strain eggs from the Iron River National Fish Hatchery in late November. This cooperative program with Iron River NFH and the Ashland Fisheries Resource Office provides thousands of fingerlings, yearlings and captive brood stocks for restoration efforts in the Lake Superior watershed.

Coaster Brook Trout, Iron River NFH

This year's planned stocking of nearly 40,000 fish for restoration projects in Michigan, Wisconsin, and Minnesota represents Genoa NFH's largest commitment to date since becoming involved in Coaster restoration efforts in the mid-1990's. In addition to release of fish directly into waters designated for restoration, Genoa provides grow out for brood stock lines for Iron River NFH. Genoa's constant 52° F well water temperatures allow for early maturation of brood fish and provides a genetic refugia for these high priority strains of fish in case of a catastrophic event at the Iron River facility. — Roger Gordon

Genoa National Fish Hatchery Assists Geneticist in Advancing Mussel DNA Information and Technology

In order to carry out restoration and recovery programs for aquatic species, fish hatcheries strive to use the best practical scientific advances and methods whenever possible. As hatchery systems and programs expand and begin working with endangered and other non-traditional species such as freshwater mussels, application of current technologies, especially advances in genetic marking, prove invaluable.

Juvenile mussel shown next to the head of a straight pin

Currently, all genetic studies done on freshwater mussels have been conducted from tissue samples from adult mussel donors, with little attention to larval or early life stages (newly transformed mussels). This methodology, while providing information on the population level, as well as perhaps matrilineal, does not adequately reflect the genetic make-up of progeny propagated in the field or aquaculture facility.

This poses questions for resource managers and propagation biologists, who rely upon providing adequate genetic variation in stock enhancement, restoration or recovery programs. The ability to understand parental contributions of wild harvested larval mussels, which are used in various propagation strategies, gives managers a powerful tool to ensure adequate genetic variation in augmentation or created populations.

Recently, Genoa National Fish Hatchery has become involved in the investigation into the ability to detect genetic markers in larval mussels through a cooperative effort with scientists at the University of California at Santa Barbara. The hatchery has provided early life stage mussels to investigators who will attempt to determine if enough genetic material is available in these miniscule organisms to detect known markers. The facility will continue to provide early life stage mussels throughout the coming months to aid in these and other investigation efforts at U.C. Santa Barbara and Iowa State University.

— Roger Gordon

For additional information about any of these projects please contact the author at Genoa National Fish Hatchery.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service