Budget decision will reduce trout stocking for next 3-5 years
By Guy Page
The Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department has proposed closing the Salisbury Fish Culture Station (hatchery) as part of a larger package of changes in the department that reflect the available budget for Fiscal Year 2025.
“This is not a proposal the department considered lightly,” Joshua Morse, Public Information Officer of Fish and Wildlife told VDC.
The Salisbury hatchery, located seven miles south of Middlebury, currently houses Vermont’s “broodstock” trout, the mature trout who produce eggs for the state’s other hatcheries. Closing the Salisbury hatchery will have impacts for Vermont anglers. Department staff are investigating ways to minimize these effects.
Specifically, Morse said, the closure of the Salisbury hatchery will reduce Vermont’s ability to produce trout for stocking state-wide and for special programs like trophy stocking over the next three to five years as this production is transferred to other Vermont hatcheries. The department’s ability to support conservation programs like Trout in the Classroom, provide fish for the Children’s Fishing Program, and provide eggs to independent hatcheries will also be impacted in the near-term.
The department will be transitioning all four full-time positions that currently operate the Salisbury hatchery to other roles within the department so that neither staff nor the positions are lost.
The Salisbury facility uses light-controlled rooms to fool the fish into spawning earlier in the year than normal. This gives the other hatcheries more time to grow the fish, resulting in larger fish and improved survival when stocked.
Because Salisbury is the broodstock station, it is home to the biggest fish of the hatchery program. “So if you want to see some monster fish up close, this is the place to visit,” the F&W website says.
The Salisbury hatchery began raising fish in 1931 and is one of Vermont’s historic hatcheries, listed on the National Register of Historic Sites. Vermont’s “broodstock station” produces nine million trout eggs annually for other state and federal fish hatcheries.
The state’s first fish hatchery was established in Roxbury in 1891. It is still in operation. A system of U.S. fish hatcheries began in the 1870’s.
A change.org petition in 2019 collected more than 3,000 signatures to keep the Salisbury site open.
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Categories: Outdoors
Why, in a state that relies so heavily on tourism & tourist revenue, have found it so necessary to cut the budget for programs such as this that assists in delivering healthful & wholesome outdoor activities for all? Could it be more social welfare programs that must take precedence, or perhaps monies needed for legalized prostitution or euthanasia instead?
I think the same could be said for abandoning tourism by converting many motels into junkie flophouses. The liberals in the legislature seems to be abandoning the sacred cow of tourism just as they have abandoned the dairy industry with regulations and lawsuits.
The liberal narrative includes that people who gather food from the natural environment, with or without the assistance of hatcheries are not “their kind of people”. The demoprogs prefer people who derive their sustenance from an EBT card. They dont like that old wisdom about “if you teach a man to fish…”.
The following is a letter I sent to Governor Scott on 1/28/24. I also sent a similar letter to Commissioner Herrick. As of today, I have not recieved a reply from either the Governor’s Office, or Commissioner Herrick
I am disappointed that the Scott Administration has once again chosen to put the Salisbury Fish Hatchery on the chopping block. According to the 2019 agreement to raise license fees by $5 to cover the costs of maintaining the hatchery, I believe the hatchery is permitted until at least 2027. The suddenness of this leads me to the question, what’s the big hurry ? I will guarantee you that 90% of the fishermen in the State of Vermont are unaware of this. Has there been a study done to ascertain how much money would be needed to continue the service that this hatchery provides ? How much is that ? Can it be raised through another license fee raise ? Are there other options ? This will affect the overall stocking program which is vital to the fishing tourism business in the State of Vermont. Have there been any studies done to predict how the loss of the fish that this hatchery produces every year will affect everything from license sales to the hospitality businesses that depend on this resource ? There are campgrounds, private single camps, stores, and restaurants on lakes and in towns that realize, and rely on out of State fishermen’s money. If the fishing here sucks, who’s going to want to spend their money to come here ? They’ll go to Maine, or New Hampshire. I don’t go to either state because the fishing in Vermont at this time is better than either of these states, but in the future ? If this hatchery is closed, will the difference in the numbers of the fish being stocked be augmented with fish from private hatcheries ? Between the kowtowing to anti-hunters, and the mismanagement of these hatcheries I’ll bet “Big Ed” Kehoe is rolling over in his grave from seeing what the Department that he guided for so many years has been turned into. Don’t do that to us, or the memory of those that came before.
Sincerely,
Pat Finnie
Lake/river/stream fishing is fun & relaxing. Ocean fishing on Long Island is serious business, with Lake Champlain here being the most comparable of course. Was involved since I was a kid on the Island.
Started with reeling in snappers off the canals and graduated to Bluefish off charters or friend’s boats. As a news videographer, going out on the Conservation & Waterways boats was always a kick with a rare sighting of a dolphin riding our bow wave for a minute or so…..all of nature is awesome.
Another state business struggling for want of limited resources. This state service clearly has a constituency…a customer base. Is it time to release it to the private sector? Can those interested in fishing…fish environments make a viable market to pursue their interests?
Cut the budget…get rid of the Department of Education first and foremost…
How much did the state pay to paint the giant, marxist blm sign outside the capital? Not enough DEI in F & W to prioritize funding? What about all that conjured ARPA money we didn’t know what to do with? How much did it cost to program and place all the digital signs on the interstate that said “stay home stay safe”? What about all the money the state allocated toward “bipoc” businesses (treating others differently based on the color of their skin is racist)? Montpelier better get its priorities straight. Socialist, “equity” driven virtue signaling legislation is destroying Vermont. Where’s Jim Douglas when we need him?