Roxbury Vermont Fish Culture Station Ribbon Cutting, Sept. 16

 Posted by Wayne G. Barber 

A ribbon-cutting ceremony celebrating construction completion of the new Roxbury Fish Culture Station will be held at 1:00 p.m. Thursday, September 16, in Roxbury after the old facility was destroyed by Hurricane Irene on August 28, 2011. 

“We would like to express our gratitude for all the support along the way, including the Governor Scott Administration, the Legislature, FEMA, and Buildings and General Services,” said Fish & Wildlife Commissioner Louis Porter.   “We would also like to thank the general contractor, E.F. Wall, for its help during the construction.” 

“The new Roxbury Fish Culture Station will produce 63,000 brook and rainbow trout annually for stocking in state waters.  These fish will provide angler opportunities statewide, which is now more important than ever with the increased interest in fishing due to COVID-19.  In addition, previous studies showed that the old Roxbury Fish Culture Station contributed about $2.4 million of economic impact annually to Vermont’s economy, so we expect that benefit to be even greater in the future.”

Now in its 130th year of operation, the facility was originally constructed in 1891 and was the first hatchery in Vermont.  It has been known locally as “the fish hatchery” and has been a favorite tourist stop in central Vermont for generations.

Roxbury Fish Hatchery
3696 Roxbury Road, Roxbury, VT 05669

The Roxbury Fish Hatchery is located on VT Rt. 12A, 2 miles south of  the town of Roxbury, on a narrow, ten-acre strip of land stretching between the highway and the Central Vermont Railroad line.

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Built in 1891, the Fish Hatchery was a response to Vermont’s decreasing population of native fish.  The State Legislature appropriated funding for the erection of a hatchery to repopulate Vermont’s lakes and streams. Roxbury was chosen for its abundant spring water, proximity to the Central Vermont Railroad line, and the donation of land by a local individual, the Hon. E. H. Spaulding. (from NPS Roxbury Fish Hatchery – link below)

In 2011, Tropical Storm Irene severely damaged the Fish Hatchery property. As of December 2020, it is now fully operational. The hatchery plan was developed by HDR Engineering, Inc. of Springfield, Ill. It was the last recovery project to be completed in Vermont.

2020: Hatchery Fully Operational
The Roxbury Fish Culture Station is now fully operational, with reconstruction finally completed.
“This facility is now Vermont’s oldest and newest fish hatchery,” said Roxbury Fish Culture Station Supervisor Jeremy Whalen. “We were able to preserve historic details of the original hatchery and meet modern water quality standards for the receiving watershed. The new and improved Roxbury hatchery will allow us to raise fish, provide angling opportunities and continue to be a mainstay in Vermont’s history, culture and economy.”
The public will be able to feed the fish as they used to do, in two outside pools.

Net Loss By Audun Rikardsen (Norway), Highly Commended In Oceans - The Bigger Picture

 Posted by Wayne G. Barber 

In the wake of a fishing boat, a slick of dead and dying herrings covers the surface of the sea off the coast of Norway. The boat had caught too many fish, and when the encircling wall of the purse-seine net was closed and winched up, it broke, releasing tons of crushed and suffocated animals. Audun was on board a Norwegian coastguard vessel, on a project to satellite‑tag killer whales. The whales follow the migrating herrings and are frequently found alongside fishing boats, where they feed on fish that leak out of the nets. For the Norwegian coastguard – responsible for surveillance of the fishing fleet – the spectacle of carnage and waste was effectively a crime scene. So Audun’s photographs became the visual evidence in a court case that resulted in a conviction and fine for the owner of the boat. Overfishing is one of the biggest threats to ocean ecosystems, and according to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, more than 60 per cent of fisheries today are either ‘fully fished’ or collapsed, and almost 30 per cent are at their limit (‘overfished’). Norwegian spring-spawning herring – part of the Atlantic herring population complex – was in the nineteenth century the most commercially fished fish population in the North Atlantic, but by the end of the 1960s, it had been fished almost to extinction. This is regarded as a classic example of how a combination of bad management, little knowledge and greed can have a devastating and sometimes permanent effect, not only on the species itself but on the whole ecosystem. The Atlantic herring came close to extinction, and it took 20 years and a near‑ban on fishing for the populations to recover, though it is still considered vulnerable to overfishing. The recovery of the herring has been followed by an increase in the numbers of their predators, such as killer whales, but it is a recovery that needs continued monitoring of herring numbers and fisheries, as Audun’s picture shows.