One of the black crappie broodfish that helped produce more than 39,000 fingerlings this year. - USFWS photo by Doug Aloisi

This yellow perch broodfish helped produce thousands of fall fingerlings this year. - USFWS photo by Doug Aloisi

Cool temperatures and turning leaves signal the end of the 2005 production year for panfish at Genoa National Fish Hatchery.  The hatchery's ponds were harvested for yellow perch, black crappie, and bluegill this month to meet production requests and fish population objectives for a variety of state, tribal, and federal agencies. This year the hatchery produced 163,660 bluegill fingerlings, 58,498 yellow perch fingerlings and 39,100 black crappie fingerlings.

The species and number of fish are provided based upon fisheries management plans that are carefully constructed by Service Fisheries Resource Offices to ensure healthy fish communities and provide recreational fishing opportunities for the public. In addition to recreational fishing, panfish species have been used for research, tribal trust programs, and recently, for biological control of non-native carp populations at the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge in Wisconsin.

These fingerlings were spawned this spring by captive broodstock held in Genoa's nursery ponds.  Once hatched, the fry are allowed to grow all summer on zooplankton and other natural food produced in the pond. Later, as the fish grow bigger, this food is supplemented with minnows produced in other ponds on the hatchery. At the end of the season, the ponds are harvested, and parent broodstock are separated from young-of-the-year. The young fish are then inventoried and shipped in distribution trucks to their new homes throughout the Midwest.