In 2004 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the agency's partners will remove 91 barriers to fish passage fish passage
Fish passage is the ability of fish or other aquatic species to move freely throughout their life to find food, reproduce, and complete their natural migration cycles. Millions of barriers to fish passage across the country are fragmenting habitat and leading to species declines. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's National Fish Passage Program is working to reconnect watersheds to benefit both wildlife and people.
Learn more about fish passage in 26 states. Here in Alaska, more than $500,000 in federal funds, augmented by an expected $250,000 in partner-contributed matching funds, will support 20 projects. These will result in the removal of 17 such barriers and the opening of more than 130 miles of waterway to native aquatic species.
Nationwide, Service funds for the popular Fish Passage Program, amounting to $2.8 million, will be supplemented by another $2 million in matching funds from a wide array of partners ranging from civic and conservation organizations, local and State governments and other Federal agencies.
Fish Passage works to remove obstructions in waterways that prevent fish from reaching spawning grounds or historic habitat. "By reopening miles of habitat to Alaska's salmon and other species," said the Service's Alaska Regional Director Rowan Gould, ?we can not only restore populations of native fish to waters where they have long been absent, we also have the potential of protecting, and even restoring, opportunities for our sport, subsistence, and commercial fisheries.?
For more information on upcoming Alaska fish-passage projects, contact Bruce Woods or Mike Roy at the numbers shown above.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 95-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System, which encompasses 544 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 69 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resources offices and 81 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign and Native American tribal governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Assistance program, which distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencie
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For more information about the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, visit our home page at http://www.fws.gov">
