Grand Opening for Wild Rose Hatchery’s new trout, salmon facilities

News Release Published: August 26, 2008 by the Northeast Region

Contact(s): Mike Staggs (608) 267-0796
Steve Fajfer (920) 622-3527
Al Kaas (608) 267-7865

Governor, anglers celebrate state’s investment in great fishing

WILD ROSE – Anglers and local residents joined Gov. Jim Doyle, DNR Secretary Matt Frank and federal fish and wildlife officials today in celebrating the grand opening of the $15.9 million renovation of Wild Rose State Fish Hatchery.

The project updates a century-old facility that’s long been a pillar of Wisconsin’s stocking program, enabling it to meet modern environmental standards and to raise even more fish.

“Today’s a great day for anglers,” Doyle told the crowd before cutting a ribbon stretched across the doors of the new trout and salmon nursery. “This project is critical to Lake Michigan’s world-class fishing and to expanding fishing opportunities across the state and it will allow wild Rose to continue to produce these fish for generations to come.”

DNR Secretary Matt Frank called the project as “an investment in our fishing future and in the local economies that sport fishing fuels.”

“We’re thrilled to be opening these new facilities for trout and salmon and to bring Wild Rose into the 21st century,” Frank said. “The renovation of this hatchery will cement Lake Michigan’s status as the top fishing destination in Wisconsin and the anchor of our $2.75 billion sport fishing industry.”

Lake Michigan depends on stocking and 100 percent of the 2 million trout and salmon produced here are stocked in Lake Michigan. The completion this year of the coldwater facilities allows DNR to continue producing Chinook, coho and brown trout. In the future, it will allow Wild Rose to start raising rainbow trout, eventually increasing by 15 percent the total amount of trout and salmon produced for Lake Michigan.

Charlie Wooley, the Deputy Regional Director for Region 3 of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, also addressed the crowd. That agency, through the Sport Fish Restoration funds it provides to Wisconsin, helped pay for the renovation of the coldwater facilities.

Renovating Wild Rose, which the state bought in 1908, was identified in a 2003 stocking study as the state’s highest priority for addressing the growing demand for fishing opportunities. Its production capacity was decreasing as a result of its aging facilities and water supply problems and the hatchery was under an order to fix the groundwater supply system.

Construction work on the coldwater facilities started in 2006 and was largely completed this spring. Work started earlier this year to build new coolwater facilities for musky, walleye, lake sturgeon and northern pike and is expected to be completed in 2010, according to Mike Staggs, Wisconsin’s fisheries director. That expansion will allow Wild Rose to double its production of these species. A third phase will restore the wetland, springs and stream disturbed when the hatchery was originally built in the early 1900s by a private fish farmer.

The renovation will allow the hatchery to send cleaner water back to the Pine River, a Class 1 trout stream, Staggs says. The state-of-the art facilities will better protect the groundwater aquifers that supply Wild Rose with water, and will assure the fish are healthier and protected from fish diseases like viral hemorrhagic septicemia, or VHS, first detected in Wisconsin waters in 2007, Staggs says.

“The renovation of Wild Rose has been a long-time in coming and it’s very satisfying to see fish being produced that in a few years’ time will give some lucky anglers the catch of a lifetime,” he says. “The fact that hatchery staff have been involved from day one in the design and execution of the project minimized the problems typically associated with moving into a new facility.”

Invited guests and local residents toured the new coldwater production facilities and saw the first fish being raised in the hatchery. They also explored the new visitor center and strolled the historic hatchery grounds, which has been fixed up with new paint, new interpretive signs. Large trout and salmon still swim in the raceways, giving people an up-close look at the fish species produced at the hatchery.

The new coldwater facilities were paid for by an innovative funding package. Nearly 40 percent of that total, or $6 million, comes from the environmental restoration agreements reached with paper companies on the Fox River. About $3.6 million comes from Sport Fish Restoration dollars, federal revenues from the excise tax on fishing and boating equipment.

The Great Lakes Trout and Salmon stamp that anglers buy to fish Lake Michigan and Lake Superior is providing $1.5 million.

Last Revised: August 26, 2008