PFBC wasting $65,500 on erosion control/rebuilding/upgrading a potter county coop hatchery in the name of stocked invasive species.

[Fish Sticks]

Purchase those voluntary wild trout stamps because this is where your actual fishing license dollars are being spent!!! Need more lunker bunkers on spruce creek with this years wild trout stamp revenue.

Wild native brook can’t even get surveyed properly to see what we have or have lost but this is where we are spending the money.

Propping up an invasive aquaculture operation responsible for 28,000 stocked invasive species in PA’s wild native brook trout and hellbender’s stronghold/most pristine cold water ecosystems.

Resource Aquaculture first.

 

[Fish Sticks]

HATCHERIES
OTHER MATTERS
A. Cooperative Nursery Grant Program: Grant to the Potter County Anglers Club, Potter County.
Commentary:
At its October 2021 Commission Meeting, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission (Commission) approved the removal of the annual funding limit for the Cooperative Nursery Grant Program and authorized the Executive Director to establish an annual funding level for the grant program that is based on the projected need of the program in conjunction with the annual budgeting process used to address all other agency priorities. The Commission authorized the Executive Director to approve individual grants of $25,000 or less per cooperative nursery, per year. For grants in excess of $25,000, staff will seek separate Commission approval.
The Potter County Anglers Club cooperative nursery stocks approximately 28,000 trout in Cameron, Elk, and Potter Counties, including the Genesee River drainage, which is located in the Great Lakes basin. As such, there are Great Lakes Fish Health Committee protocols that must be followed. To adhere to these protocols, improvements to the spring water source at the nursery are required. These include narrowing of the spring pond, spring pond bank stabilization, and enclosing the spring pond to prevent disease vectors from entering. Additionally, an updated and energy efficient aeration system is needed to maintain the daily trout rearing operation at the nursery. This will include the installation of a new blower motor, pipes, tubing, and air stones throughout the nursery. The Potter County Anglers Club is requesting $65,500 to complete these projects.
Briefer:
Brian C. Niewinski, Chief, Division of Fish Production Services
Recommendation:
Staff recommend that the Commission approve a grant not to exceed $65,500 to the Potter County Anglers Club, Potter County, as described in the Commentary.

https://www.fishandboat.com/AboutUs/MinutesAgendas/Documents/agendasDocs/2023-1-23-agd.pdf

 

[riverwhy]

How do you enclose a spring pond?

 

[Fish Sticks]

How do you enclose a spring pond?

Good question, i don’t know how they are going to manipulate the pond. I imagine possibly like another example of wasted ground water up in that area, that “rainbow paradise” outside of coudersport on the headwaters of mill creek. In that example it appears to me like they made levies or berms around where the spring bubbles up to take what i am sure was a spring fed tributary or wet land and dam it up into a pond.

 

[troutbert]

How do you enclose a spring pond?

In Centre County, the Benner Spring is covered over with a structure that has low concrete walls and a metal roof. The Big Spring in Bellefonte was open and used as drinking water for a long time, but was closed over sometime around the late 1980s or early 1990s, I think. It's covered with a plastic tarp-like material that floats on the water's surface.

For drinking water supplies, I guess it makes some sense.

For the purpose described in this case, I don't think it makes sense. The Genessee River and its branches in PA are wild trout streams, with populations of brown trout and native brook trout. The obvious, sensible solution is for them to quit stocking in the Genessee River drainage. It's really not many miles of stream in PA. And I'm pretty sure the PFBC stocks the Genesseee River.

 

[Fish Sticks]

In Centre County, the Benner Spring is covered over with a structure that has low concrete walls and a metal roof. The Big Spring in Bellefonte was open and used as drinking water for a long time, but was closed over sometime around the late 1980s or early 1990s, I think. It's covered with a plastic tarp-like material that floats on the water's surface.

For drinking water supplies, I guess it makes some sense.

For the purpose described in this case, I don't think it makes sense. The Genessee River and its branches in PA are wild trout streams, with populations of brown trout and native brook trout. The obvious, sensible solution is for them to quit stocking in the Genessee River drainage. It's really not many miles of stream in PA. And I'm pretty sure the PFBC stocks the Genesseee River.

A drop in production of stocked fish in the county with the highest ratio of stream born trout to human beings in the entire state would be unconscionable to PFBC. They don’t what happens to the native brook trout as long as they have a PDF online somewhere that says they have a plan for “wild trout” which they refuse to even acknowledge are separate species.

I agree potter county is where we most desperately need stocking reform but their doubling down on infrastructure instead. This is why we need regime change. Shapiro was sworn in yesterday and is picking cabinet members/agency heads. Anyone who wants to join those of us already asking him with a hand written letter for some more professionally qualified commissioners that will address PFBC’s failures, it would be our best and last option for prevent ecologically harmful fiscal waste such as the above.

 

[krayfish2]

What is so shocking? PFBC has consistently exhibited the same "resource first" management style.

 

[Fish Sticks]

What is so shocking? PFBC has consistently exhibited the same "resource first" management style.

Oh no its not shocking, its expected in fact. The fact that you get solicited to “donate” to a wild trout stamp as an after thought but then the lions share of your mandatory fishing license fee is going to aquaculture. This displays the priorities and sets the tone to not be surprised by this stuff.

65k to a hatchery sure pa fish and boat writes a check

Money for the resource? PFBC hopes your feeling charitable

 

[CRB]

"The fact that you get solicited to “donate” to a wild trout stamp as an after thought but then the lions share of your mandatory fishing license fee is going to aquaculture"

Don't purchase a trout stamp.
Push for a wild trout stamp to offer wild trout fishing and Not stocked trout.

 

[Fish Sticks]

"The fact that you get solicited to “donate” to a wild trout stamp as an after thought but then the lions share of your mandatory fishing license fee is going to aquaculture"

Don't purchase a trout stamp.
Push for a wild trout stamp to offer wild trout fishing and Not stocked trout.

Thats a great thought and at one point i had considered advocating for an “opt out” of hatchery funding. That could be a valid option if there was a will to do so at PFBC. However at this point the level of failure surrounding resource management for multiple species of fish/amphibians, lack of professional qualifications of untrained commissioners, and gross large scale fiscal waste at PFBC warrant regime change to get anything done that resembles the successes our neighboring states have achieved. Despite other states not being perfect its mind numbing how far ahead of us they are in stocking reform, introgression prevention, regulations, invasive species mitigation, partnerships that have active collaboration of EBTJV and the science they serve as a repository/source of expertise on.

PFBC is a derelict dinosaur protecting what it falsely perceives as its only method of generating license sales, stocked trout. Ironically hatchery expenses are increasing faster than license sales revenues so when they increase your license fee to the point that anglers decide to not purchase there will be a fiscal reckoning that will force cuts and leave a bunch of anglers socially conditioned to only enjoy rapidly catching stocked manufactured trophies with the damage/ loss of native brook trout stocking has caused.

We need total replacement with qualified commissioners that are professionally qualified and trained to be fisheries managers. It shouldn’t be some guy selected because they were a volunteer WCO, likes volunteering to feed the co-op trout, and was willing to support getting rid of John Arway after coming on as commissioner. When staff recommends not stocking class B’s these commissioners can understand what is being recommended but they have no idea of the ramifications long term to our state fish when they rejected that. They only see the, sometimes imagined, social opposition and not what a real resource manager needs to consider.

So i agree with your suggest and many other past ones on here others have made but PFBC itself needs reform for any of them to happen.recent common sense stocking authorization that failed as case and point.

 

[flyguyfishing]

I think PFBC is vastly funded by fishing license sales (and boat license on the boat side). To me, PFBC has a product (stocked fish) to sale in hopes of selling more license. Selling more license increases revenue allowing them more funding for other stuff - including conservation. PFBC needs to maximize revenue to self fund. They want to sell as many license as they can.

To me, to make the changes you want, you need to focus on money. None of the scientific articles linked will do any good without economic impact studies.

What decrease in license revenue would the commonwealth have if they drastically reduce stocking statewide? Would revenue decrease (in my experience, it would, but the data might tell a different story)? What happens to revenue (from license and fees) if only one watershed stopped stocking? Perhaps that one watershed would become a destination fishery and increase economic activity in the surrounding area.

I think you have better chance to make the changes you want if ya follow the money.

 

[Fish Sticks]

I think PFBC is vastly funded by fishing license sales (and boat license on the boat side). To me, PFBC has a product (stocked fish) to sale in hopes of selling more license. Selling more license increases revenue allowing them more funding for other stuff - including conservation. PFBC needs to maximize revenue to self fund. They want to sell as many license as they can.

To me, to make the changes you want, you need to focus on money. None of the scientific articles linked will do any good without economic impact studies.

What decrease in license revenue would the commonwealth have if they drastically reduce stocking statewide? Would revenue decrease (in my experience, it would, but the data might tell a different story)? What happens to revenue (from license and fees) if only one watershed stopped stocking? Perhaps that one watershed would become a destination fishery and increase economic activity in the surrounding area.

I think you have better chance to make the changes you want if ya follow the money.

Myself and many others before have looked that this and the money is the exact reason your right. We are already following the money because as mentioned its fiscally unsustainable so you get to the point where fee increases to counter the growth of expenses being faster than the growth of revues causes angler drop out from license sales and fishing participation. Myself and many others have have pointed out the popular eco tourism that the savage river in MD and Pocahontas county WV special
Brook trout management areas provide they don’t care they don’t think anything but stocking can generate the will to fish. They willfully ignore recipes for ecological and financial success right across state lines.

Its always been about they money and thats been a large part of NFC’s position that stocked trout are not generating the return on investment PA fish and boat thinks they have underestimated the value and potential of self sustaining native brook trout fisheries in select areas.

60k trout go into kettle creek. If you stopped stocking it and created a brook trout fishery with individuals living longer and growing faster as a result of being able to occupy mainstem habitat more people who don’t fish there will travel to fish there. Will some local people driving from 2 counties over who prefer stocked trout stop coming yes. But could you potentially get some people from NYC to drive past the Catskills that don’t have a wild native brook trout management zone at watershed scale?….Yea. I wish I could keep a running record for all to see of the various dialogues about how ecological health/fisheries management and conservation could
be improved at different scales. It would be very extensive and i am sure I am not aware of all of it despite high participation/engagement of PFBC past and present.

The reason fiscal common sense has not changed anything is they are about the money but more terrified of any change to their outdated structure and have some fear based overblown perceptions/ideas about how the public might react if they did what many other states have done. There is an idea that special interests such as hatcheries and prominent sportsmens groups have to be “on board” with their actions even if pandering to these groups makes them derelict as a resource manager.

The problem with the money route is, even though your right about it being their motivation, is you have to get over the narrow minded group think about what could be done that a group of professionally unqualified good Ole’ boys who wandered into a fish commissioner appointment almost uniformly possess.

Regime change is the only viable solution at this point. We need those not qualified to do their job and who have failed out and someone who understands whats at stake and how to strike a better balance and more effective out come in.

 

[Cznymph]

I think PFBC is vastly funded by fishing license sales (and boat license on the boat side). To me, PFBC has a product (stocked fish) to sale in hopes of selling more license. Selling more license increases revenue allowing them more funding for other stuff - including conservation. PFBC needs to maximize revenue to self fund. They want to sell as many license as they can.

To me, to make the changes you want, you need to focus on money. None of the scientific articles linked will do any good without economic impact studies.

What decrease in license revenue would the commonwealth have if they drastically reduce stocking statewide? Would revenue decrease (in my experience, it would, but the data might tell a different story)? What happens to revenue (from license and fees) if only one watershed stopped stocking? Perhaps that one watershed would become a destination fishery and increase economic activity in the surrounding area.

I think you have better chance to make the changes you want if ya follow the money.

The PFBC has created a situation in which they are so dependent on license sales from people who fish only a few weekends each spring and expect to catch and keep a limit of trout every time they venture out. By ceasing any stocking, they likely lose those fair weather anglers license dollars and the matching Dingle Johnson excise tax money that is distributed for each license sold.

They are so dependent on this that the refuse to do what is ecologically sensible, such as not stocking wild trout waters, or not stocking trout that pose a health risk to native species. The mudsnail debacle is a great example of this. Rather than depopulating two of the largest hatcheries in the state in ensure that there won’t be any transmission of Mudsnails from stocking trout out of those facilities, they develop some bs plan that “lowers” the risk of transmission.

Potter county anglers is another interesting situation. For the last number of years, the potter county anglers and PFBC stocked the Genesee river and two of its tributaries. These fish came from the Oswayo hatchery, both as adult stocked trout and as fingerlings delivered to potter county anglers. The Great Lakes Fisheries Commission prohibits the stocking of IPN(infectious pancreatic necrosis) positive fish in the Great Lakes. This has been a concern in the Erie steelhead fishery, but has gone largely ignored in the Genesee River until 2022. Fish are now stocked from the Corry Hatchery and that hatchery is also supplying Potter county anglers with their fingerlings as well.

What it boils down to is that PFBC will not do the right thing from an ecology standpoint, for fear of losing license sales.

 

[Fish Sticks]

The PFBC has created a situation in which they are so dependent on license sales from people who fish only a few weekends each spring and expect to catch and keep a limit of trout every time they venture out. By ceasing any stocking, they likely lose those fair weather anglers license dollars and the matching Dingle Johnson excise tax money that is distributed for each license sold.

They are so dependent on this that the refuse to do what is ecologically sensible, such as not stocking wild trout waters, or not stocking trout that pose a health risk to native species. The mudsnail debacle is a great example of this. Rather than depopulating two of the largest hatcheries in the state in ensure that there won’t be any transmission of Mudsnails from stocking trout out of those facilities, they develop some bs plan that “lowers” the risk of transmission.

Potter county anglers is another interesting situation. For the last number of years, the potter county anglers and PFBC stocked the Genesee river and two of its tributaries. These fish came from the Oswayo hatchery, both as adult stocked trout and as fingerlings delivered to potter county anglers. The Great Lakes Fisheries Commission prohibits the stocking of IPN(infectious pancreatic necrosis) positive fish in the Great Lakes. This has been a concern in the Erie steelhead fishery, but has gone largely ignored in the Genesee River until 2022. Fish are now stocked from the Corry Hatchery and that hatchery is also supplying Potter county anglers with their fingerlings as well.

What it boils down to is that PFBC will not do the right thing from an ecology standpoint, for fear of losing license sales.

Absolutely right, they can’t see a way forward for themselves without stocked invasive hatchery trout. Therefore they must be removed and reformed with people not indoctrinated into their group think and have the relevant degrees and experience to manage. Potential qualified commissioner/executive Director replacements exist externally that can see PFBC made its bed by promoting the stocked trout as the pinnacle of fishing with doing no public education on the ecological its must easier to change something if your brought in due to the glaring failure of your predecessor rather than if your the soon to be predecessor currently asleep at the wheel with the sole interest of status quo and fear of loss.

 

[flyguyfishing]

I am not being argumentative. Do you have economic impact studies (either by PFBC or a third party)? I cannot find any. Do you have the study or data showing rate of increase in cost of stocking vs rate of decrease in license being unattainable? MD and WV, I believe fishery is managed by DNR. I don’t think their DNR are funded almost solely by license/fees (like PFBC) How are MD and WV fishery management funded?

I agree, the organization structure and the reliance on stocking of the PFBC is frustrating. It is a closed system making change difficult. Ya gotta speak their language. Ya gotta prove through professional reports that greatly reduced stocking (and supplement reduction of revenue from license?) will not financially ruin the PFBC. Until/unless a drastic organizational change happens ( probably from policy makers - politicians), the PFBC needs to be self sufficient. The commissioners have “a business to run.”

 

[Fish Sticks]

I am not being argumentative. Do you have economic impact studies (either by PFBC or a third party)? I cannot find any. Do you have the study or data showing rate of increase in cost of stocking vs rate of decrease in license being unattainable? MD and WV, I believe fishery is managed by DNR. I don’t think their DNR are funded almost solely by license/fees (like PFBC) How are MD and WV fishery management funded?

I agree, the organization structure and the reliance on stocking of the PFBC is frustrating. It is a closed system making change difficult. Ya gotta speak their language. Ya gotta prove through professional reports that greatly reduced stocking (and supplement reduction of revenue from license?) will not financially ruin the PFBC. Until/unless a drastic organizational change happens ( probably from policy makers - politicians), the PFBC needs to be self sufficient. The commissioners have “a business to run.”

No I agree and thats the problem is the people outwardly claiming to be resource managers and stewards of the commonwealth’s aquatic resources are only concerned with being a business not a manager. As for the financial needs and challenges.

A business analysis done by Penn State is the solid proof your looking for. The below quote from it shows the writing on the wall.
Apparently they wont take pennstate’s business analysis recommendations anymore than Fisheries scientists.


“Threats facing the agency include changing demographics and leisure time activities, current and future obligations being projected to overcome annual revenues, and general difficulty in being able to “change” the organization due to external stakeholders. Taken together all these trends form a significant hurdle blocking PFBC from achieving long term economic sustainability.
We examined opportunities for expense reduction within the agency and found the following:
 Most of the easily-achieved expense reduction opportunities have already been identified and many have been put in place.
 External forces such as stakeholders constrain PFBC’s ability to go after larger cost- reduction strategies.
 Internal factors like mandated and fixed expenses also constrain the ability to significantly cut costs.
 Specific options for cutting expenses include:
o Cutting back on fish production appears to be possible and warranted as a cost
cutting measure.
o Reducing number of hatcheries.
o Outsourcing of various functions.
o Improved production planning related to fish production and stocking.”

https://www.fishandboat.com/AboutUs/AgencyOverview/Funding/Documents/factsheet_green_ribbon.pdf

https://www.fishandboat.com/AboutUs/Documents/PSU-BusinessAnalysis.pdf

 

[Fish Sticks]

A business school recommended they stop producing fish to a significant degree and shut down hatcheries………

Wasn’t the usually federal science agency’s, EVTJV, native brook trout ecology experts at conferences, university academics in fisheries science, or fish sticks parroting the unheeded/unincorporated science based warnings/concepts from folks till blue in the face…..it was a purely financial analysis.

Really doesn’t matter what discipline or angle your analyzing them from as an organization their unwillingness to change, deceitfulness, and gross incompetence is hiding in plain sight… until its not and then it hits you like brick dropped from space.

 

[CRB]

Trout Wars??
Opening day traditions changes in the back wood communities of PA?

 

[krayfish2]

Buying wild trout stamp, musky stamp, etc = $$ diverted to failing pension fund. Won't get me to believe otherwise. Too many hands out for slices of the pie

 

[Fish Sticks]

Trout Wars??
Opening day traditions changes in the back wood communities of PA?

One i interesting thing i saw in that linked PSU business analysis of PFBC was they are projected to actually lose around 35% of license purchasers if a basic license is increased to a certain point to generate extra revenue think it was around 50 bucks. Would there be some outrage in backwoods communities if stockings were consolidated to fewer locations, of course they have been conditioned by PA fish and boat for a long time as have all communities. But i never hear about how they would likely disproportionately get priced out of fishing if we keep stocking based on those 2017 projections. Id imagine that 35% drop state wide due to fee increases would more backwoods communities than wealthier suburban anglers. The conversation needs to be why are we pricing these people out of fishing when their backwoods communities have the most stream born trout to catch. We know in these more intact habitats you get increased natural reproduction when you stop stocking. These people targeted to be priced out would actually get more fish year round as opposed to 3 weeks of hatchery trout that bolt for private property, go belly up because they don’t know how to be a fish, or become eagle bait from holding in a tailout at high noon.

At the end of the day these backwoods communities and all communities just need to be told this is harmful PFBC messed up, educated, and told that this cannot be financially sustained and the hatchery program is being scaled back and consolidated. This idea that everyone needs to be onboard is ridiculous. Fisheries science is a discipline. Either society has experts that apply their knowledge for all of us to manage the commonwealths resources or we do away with those experts and let perceived public opinion operate in scientific disciplines they are not qualified to have opinion’s in. It would be like if NASA started taking public comment periods on what type of thrust modulater specs should be selected for their next space craft from lawyers, english professors, custodians, and everyone else in the public. Fisheries science is made up of ecology, conservation genetics, invasion biology, and much much more. Its no less, of not more so, complex than the above analogy. Opinions are like a**h****, everyone s got one. John q public should not be steering the bus when it comes to how fisheries are managed within the regulatory ability of a resource management agency during a global extinction event, they should be an informed passenger.