Province provides millions to upgrade and build three northern Ont. fish hatcheries

Province funds fish culture stations Ontario’s nine fish culture stations play a key role in conservation and re-populating lakes and rivers with a variety of fish species.

Ontario’s nine fish culture stations play a key role in conservation and re-populating lakes and rivers with a variety of fish species.

"We do rehabilitation of native species," said Peter Addison, the fish culture section manager.

"Species like aurora trout, which is in northeastern Ontario and rehabilitating that species that has declined."

At the hatcheries, the fish grow until they’re about a year old and then are released into 200 lakes in central and northern Ontario.

At peak times, there are 20 million fish in the culture stations. Approximately half of the fish are stocked into inland lakes and rivers. The other half are stocked into the Great Lakes.

Fish are stocked at all life stages: eyed eggs, fry, fingerlings, yearlings and some as catchable-sized fish.

The Ministry of Natural Resources is spending $75 million building a walleye hatchery on Manitoulin Island at the Blue Jay Creek Fish Culture Station to increase the production of walleye by as much as 600 per cent annually.

Upgrades to the Hill’s Lake Fish Culture Station in Englehart will be made to increase its capacity to raise and stock more than 530,000 fish.

And improvements will be made to the North Bay Fish Culture Station to enable the stocking of more than half a million high-demand fish.

The water circulating system will also be rebuilt to increase water temperatures in early rearing. That will increase fish growth and the size of stocked fish, improving fish survival after being sent into the wild.

An automatic fish feeding station will also be added to increase efficiency.

"Specifically in North Bay, we have brook trout, lake trout, rainbow trout, brown trout and splake. Splakes are a hybrid between brook trout and lake trout," Addison said.

The government said the modern equipment will help staff increase capacity for growing larger fish and reduce operational costs, in part by reducing energy use.

Ensuring lakes are stocked

"It’s important to our angling community to signal to them that we are in this business of ensuring our lakes and rivers are stocked full of fish, and we want people to come drop a line in," MNR Minister Graydon Smith told reporters.

The North Bay hatchery, located just north of Redbridge, was built in 1937 and re-built in 1965.

"Building some new technology that will allow us to grow fish more efficiently and grow fish to bigger sizes," Addison said.

"That increases the effectiveness of that stocking because the fish will survive better."

Angling in Ontario is estimated to be a $1 billion industry.

"Fishing also means something to people on a very personal level," Smith added.

"But we have a number of businesses that depend on a strong, healthy system of lakes, rivers and streams."