Fish and Aquatic Conservation
We work to conserve America's aquatic resources for present and future generations. (Photo: Larry Jernigan/USFWS)
We work with our partners and engage the public, using a science-based approach,
to conserve, restore
and enhance fish and other aquatic resources for the
continuing benefit of the American people.
Recent News
There was Plenty of Ice and Fish For Saturday's Fishing Event
February 2019
The Genoa National Fish Hatchery, WI, hosted it’s Kids Ice Fishing Day, a tradition for the last decade. Participants ranged from 5 to 12 years of age. Staff made sure to auger plenty of fishing holes and gear was provided to the young anglers. It didn’t take too long before the fish started biting.
“When the fish was flapping it’s fin it felt like it was bigger than it is. I caught the biggest fish in my family,” said 5 year old Kassidy.
Kids and parents/guardians alike learned about the traditional Northwoods skill of ice fishing on the hatchery pond, well stocked with plenty of rainbow trout.
In addition to the National Fish Hatchery, several other agencies made the event possible. These included Friends of the Upper Mississippi River Fisheries Service, La Crosse Fish Health Center and the La Crosse Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office.
slides – 30 years’ worth. Credit: Meagan Racey/USFWS
The fish doctor
U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist — a 'force behind 1998 effort to standardize' the methods for monitoring and managing fish disease
By Meagan Racey February 8, 2019
She wanted to work with people – be a nurse, maybe even a doctor.
Then, a college course about salmon – in the wild, not on the plate – changed Kimberly True’s life.
The future of the 1980s college student took a hard turn, abandoning a potential career in human health to pursue one devoted to raising healthier fish.
“I got really excited about them and thought they were amazing creatures,” she said, describing the salmon’s lengthy trek to the ocean and its marathon return riddled with obstacles. “They really work very hard to survive.”
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service scooped her up after she finished her biochemistry degree, assigning her to one of the agency’s fish health centers in the Pacific Northwest. The 30-year career that followed has focused on support and diagnostics for federal hatcheries raising and releasing salmon and other fish in California, Nevada and Washington.
year learn about the raising of trout to stock waterways mainly in Arkansas.
How trout came to Arkansas
by Keith Sutton/Contributing Writer | February 3, 2019 at 12:00 a.m.
If you had a time machine and could travel back to the early 1940s in Arkansas, you would discover at least one thing very different about the clear gravel-bottomed rivers of the Ozark and Ouachita mountains. They had no trout. None. Zero. Nada.
That may seem odd considering the fact that today, some of those same rivers — the White, the Little Red, the Spring and others — are considered among the world’s top trout-fishing destinations. Gone are the smallmouth bass and other cool-water denizens native to those flowing waters, and in their place are millions of rainbow, brown, brook and cutthroat trout stocked to mitigate the loss of native fishes that couldn’t survive in the cold tailwaters below newly built federal dams.
Supervisor of the Year Southwest Region. Left to right Regional
Director Amy Lueders, Kerry Graves, Donna Graves, and
Assistant Regional Director Stewart Jacks. Photo credit: Al Barrus
Kerry Graves Named U.S. F&W Supervisor of the Year
February 2019
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (Service) is pleased to announce that Kerry Graves has been honored as the Service’s 2018 Supervisor of the Year in the Southwest Region. Graves manages Tishomingo National Fish Hatchery in Tishomingo, Oklahoma.
Graves received the accolades at a formal ceremony in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for his steady leadership in fisheries conservation. For 23 years, Graves has led conservation endeavors at the federal fisheries facility. He guides daily operations, led large construction projects, managed personnel, and of course, spawned and raised fish species important to anglers and to conservation.
Graves has steered culture of some of the largest species found in North America: paddlefish, alligator gar, alligator snapping turtle, as well as federally threatened or endangered fishes such as leopard darter and Arkansas River shiner.