MAGNETAWAN – Getting the Magnetawan fish hatchery back will be an upstream battle.
The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry is no longer funding the Magnetawan River hatchery and management biologist Stephen Scholten says it’s for good reason.
“In general we don’t believe that supplemental stocking is beneficial,” Scholten, who works out of the ministry’s Bracebridge office, says.
“It can potentially have negative impacts on fish populations.”
“We are supportive of protecting and enhancing those populations but we don’t feel that stocking is the tool to do that.”
– Stephen Scholten, MNRF
The Magnetawan hatchery has been in operation for the better part of the past 35 years. Run by the Almaguin Fish Improvement Association, but with permits from the ministry, the operation takes mature walleye fish from the Magnetawan River, milks them of eggs and sperm, and hatches the fry in the basement of the Magnetawan museum, just below the village dam, before returning them to Ahmic and Cecebe Lakes.
But Scholten says doing this could harm the walleye population.
“You’re only taking eggs from a very limited number of fish in the population and those fish may or may not be representative or carry the genes that are the best for that population,” he says.
“You may be unintentionally altering the genetic profile of the population by encouraging the survival of certain fish but not others.”
The Almaguin Fish Improvement Association believes otherwise.
Following a Feb. 26 steering committee meeting of Almaguin councils, many municipalities have begun circulating a resolution to petition the ministry to enter into a long-term agreement reinstating the fish hatchery stocking program. Magnetawan council passed the resolution unanimously during its March 11 meeting.
Coun. John Hetherington has been involved with the association and he spoke about the program’s cancellation.
“Some of the things being raised as a concern don’t make any sense,” Hetherington said. “Saying we’re going to alter the genetics by taking the fish out, taking her eggs, putting her back, putting her offspring back … it defies logic. The whole thing is just a farce.”
Hetherington also questioned the science behind the decision, saying there’s no proof the stocking program alters the genetic profile of Ahmic and Cecebe Lakes.
Scholten says the ministry doesn’t know enough about the genetics to truly understand the impacts.
“We’re really taking a precautionary approach to not interfere with natural production when it is occurring already in those lakes,” Scholten says. “We really don’t understand the survival of individual fish or individual genes in those populations.”
An example Scholten gave was his belief the walleye population in the Magnetawan River spawns very late, compared to others in the area, but the ministry doesn’t know why. If the association is collecting eggs from fish that would naturally spawn earlier or later in the run, they could be interfering with the biological process of the fish most suited for the lake habitats.
During the March 11 Magnetawan council meeting, audience members questioned why the ministry seems to be more supportive of trout stocking than walleye. But Scholten says it’s more about the type of stocking than the breed of fish.
“In general most walleye stocking that has been done traditionally is what we call supplemental, so that’s stocking where there’s already an existing population,” he says.
“Most of the trout stocking we do is stocking on lakes that don’t have the capability to support a natural population due to natural habitat limitations in those lakes.”
Occasionally the ministry will do introductions to try to establish fish populations where they don’t naturally occur, but Scholten says this is done for specific reasons and is mostly short-term.
“Ongoing stocking where there is natural populations we do discourage,” he says.
The Magnetawan program was cancelled in the mid-2000s, but reinstated in 2011 for a four-year contract with the understanding that the ministry would conduct genetic testing on the walleye to determine if there was a negative impact. But Scholten says that’s proven to be challenging.
“It’s difficult to collect enough samples to do a robust analysis and that’s one of the reasons we’ve opted out of continuing the project,” Scholten says.
“We just don’t feel with the resources available from either the association or internally that we’re going to be able to collect enough samples to really give a quality answer to some of those questions.”
Scholten also says the ministry doesn’t believe the program cancellation will affect the fishing tourism industry on Ahmic or Cecebe and the ministry will continue to support the community in other ways.
“Even though we’re not supportive of stocking, we are interested in working with the association on other activities that might benefit the population such as continuing to monitor the populations, doing habitat improvements, or public awareness educational programs about invasive species or protection of habitats, those types of things,” Scholten says.
“We are supportive of protecting and enhancing those populations but we don’t feel that stocking is the tool to do that.”
Hetherington took a different view of it.
“There is a lot of political pressure up the ladder, which happened before as well and they reluctantly gave us our permit last time,” he said.
“They didn’t like the fact that we went political, but we got a license, so we’re going to do it again.”
Almaguin News
