What are you doing?
Let's start at the beginning.
What is this facility, how did it
come about and what is its purpose?
Yeah, so this is the University of
Wisconsin Stevens Point Northern
Aquaculture Demonstration Facility.
And it exists to
be a research arm of the aquaculture
industry in the state of Wisconsin,
ultimately.
The state of the Wisconsin recognized
a need for developing
aquaculture within the state.
And part of developing aqua
culture in the State is having a
strong, robust research
arm.
So our mandate is to do research.
That supports aquaculture, but
also science transfer,
where we're taking that research and
teaching it to
prospective fish farmers.
And then we also do outreach and
education, where we are teaching K
through 12 students or college
students about aquaculture,
training future workforce,
and various other aspects of
developing an aquacultur industry
within the state.
So I think most people who think of
aquaculture know about salmon or
tilapia,
why do you blow it?
Yeah, I mean, we've done research
with salmon and tilapia, but
walleye are a species that is
very valuable in the
upper Midwest, especially in
Wisconsin.
And we, for the longest
time, have not been able to culture
walleye in captivity.
And going forward,
having walleye as a suitable
aquaculture species has the
potential to be very valuable.
Right now, if you go to a
supermarket or go to A Friday Fish
Fry, And there's walleye
on the menu.
That walleye is almost certainly
coming in as frozen filets
from wild capture fisheries
in Canada, which is
great, but that market
could be supplemented by
walleye that are raised right here
in Wisconsin, locally to where
they're being consumed.
So we're doing a lot of research to
try to develop walleye as a suitable
aquaculture species, figure out
all the particularities of raising
them.
And hopefully in the next couple
of years we can have walleye that
are on your
plate that have been grown right
here in Wisconsin.
So what are you looking at
and what have you found?
Yeah, so we're very early
in developing walleye as a
suitable aquaculture species.
Other developed species, such as
Atlantic salmon, we've been raising
since the 50s, 60s.
We've been only raising walleye
for 10 to 15 years,
right? And there's a lot of
challenges that you have to overcome
to develop a species for
aquaculturing.
And we've iteratively working
on those challenges in bottlenecks
to make walleye a suitable species.
So we've done everything from
figuring out what feed to feed them
at different life stages to
figuring out what environmental
conditions to give brood stock,
what temperatures, what oxygen
conditions, water quality
parameters.
We've also tried to figure out
techniques that make them more
suitable for food fish
development. So can we stagger out
the timing of their growth so you
can bring them to market at
different times and
various aspects like that.
Another thing that's neat is the
research that we're doing, while it
primarily has an aquaculture
angle to it, often
also has direct application
to wild fish fisheries.
So we're digging into the
reproductive physiology of
these fish and some of our
findings can tell us things about
the importance of winter water
temperatures for walleye spawning or
growth rates of various strains
of walleye that we are working with.
So it kind of has that
dual application that's really neat.
Yeah, give me a little bit about
light and temperature.
Those are some of the variables when
no one really knows when the spawn
will happen in the stream.
Yeah, absolutely.
So for any
fish species, light and
temperature are very important
factors.
For walleye, temperature is really a
primary driver of
gonadal development.
In the wild, walleye
are experiencing a cold winter.
They're under the ice for the
bulk of that winter period.
And we know that that cold winter is
really important for
their egg development and spawning.
We don't really have a great idea of
where the thresholds are
or the boundaries on how warm
that winter period can be for
successful reproduction.
So we've been doing research on
trying to identify where
those thresholds are.
We've found in our research that
colder water temperatures are far
more ideal for
optimizing spawning in walleye
so anything four
to five degrees Celsius or
cooler is is
Perfect for walleye, you'll
get the best spawn if those fish
have been exposed to those
cold water temperatures.
Approaching eight degrees Celsius
and warmer, you start to see a
decline in gamete quality,
as well as the total number of eggs
spawned and milk produced by
the males.
And then even warmer than that,
and we see pretty much a complete
cessation of spawning.
This information is really useful
for figuring out how to raise
walleye in a captive environment
like this. So we know now
if you're going to raise a walleye
and have a brood stock, you should
give them a really cold winter to
optimize their spawning.
But it also tells us that in
the wild, cold winters are
important. So these winters where
we have ice out in the middle of
winter might be really
consequential for walleye
populations and the success
of walleye for spawning in that
year.
So that must be variable over
stream, because obviously fish
south of Wisconsin don't necessarily
get ice conditions.
Yeah, absolutely.
A lot of people don't realize the
really broad distribution of
walleye. Even here in Wisconsin
we're kind of at the southern
fringes of core walleye
habitat, but walleye actually
are present in
Alabamas, so that far south,
and those fish are certainly not
getting the same winter cues that
they're getting here in Wisconsin or
in their core habitat in,
say, central Ontario.
There's certainly a strain factor
at play and we are doing some work
on figuring out how those
different strains respond to
changes in climate and warmer
water conditions.
We're also seeing what genetic
components that these different
strains may have that make
them more suitable for aquaculture,
for food production.
So is it just, I mean people have
talked long term about the collapse
of Wall Island, lakes in northern
Wisconsin.
How much of that can be tied now
with these studies to climate
change or lake shore development
versus over harvest?
Yeah, it's a really difficult
question. It's really hard,
especially when you're looking in
natural systems, to
assign a particular outcome
with one individual cause.
The fact of the matter is there's
multiple stressors occurring that
all, in combination,
lead to these effects that
we observe.
What we do know is that
walleye populations are struggling
in a lot of portions of their
range, and it's likely a
combination of spawning
habitat degradation,
thermal conditions, thermal
photo conditions in these lakes
shifting to be less favorable
for walleye, and also the
trophic structure in lakes shifting
to be more favorable for other
species such as largemouth
bass and less suitable
for walleyes.
But the reality is all these
combinations are acting in concert
to have these influences
on walleye in their native range.
So when the old thing of
just people caught too many and
kept too many, or bag limits,
or tribes, or whatever they wanted
to blame it on, often those were
downstream effects.
Sometimes and sometimes
over harvest can still
have an effect on walleye and that's
why we have our fishing regulations
and those regulations
can change on various lakes
depending on what fisheries
managers are seeing.
But yeah by
and large a lot of the challenges
that walleye are facing right now
are not due to overfishing,
it's due to those changes in
to a thermal habitat or
you know, changes in spawning
habitat that we're seeing.
So, I mean,
in some ways is it like Northwoods
has gone from
wild to a little more
cultured as it's become the northern
lake home and less of the cabin
with the weeds down to the water's
edge. Yeah.
Between the water ski or the power
boats and like just how
we use the lakes has changed so much
that it's changed lakes that sucks.
Yeah, absolutely.
You mentioned power boats and
that can be an issue.
One of the biggest issues is
sedimentation of
spawning habitat.
So while I require rocky
riprap to
disperse their eggs and
that needs to be well oxygenated for
those eggs to develop and ultimately
hatch.
And in a lot of systems that
have a lot sediment load,
those spawning substrates can it
completely covered and those eggs no
longer have.
A good well-oxygenated place
to develop, and sometimes those
eggs can even be covered by sediment
in the right type of system,
and that can be really detrimental.
Who's funding all this?
Yeah, over the years, we've
had funding from a variety of
different sources, and it depends on
the project.
Right now, a lot of our funding is
coming from Wisconsin Sea Grant
through NOAA.
But we've also had funding through
the North Central Regional
Aquaculture Center
through
USDA.
Um, and we've also had, uh,
other, other sources of funding from
US Fish and Wildlife Service, um,
and Great Lakes Fisheries Commission
and Great Lakes Restoration
Initiative.
So one of the things that we try to
look at through the walleye and the
research is how
it is that all this money gets
poured into this one species and
what does that say about that
species that's so
desirable or so important that
there's all this money from these
different places coming in.
Yeah, I mean, walleye are
tremendously culturally important
for really everybody
in the region.
It's far and away the most favored
sport fish in
the upper Midwest.
In my opinion, the best tasting fish
that you can get.
So there's a lot of value from
a lot different angles and that
contributes to why we're funding
a lot the work on developing walleye
as an aquaculture species.
And also contributes to why we're
spending a lot of research money on
figuring out how to conserve this
species for the future.
So tell me a little about yourself.
You grew up in the upper Midwest.
Walleye was not a strange species to
you.
Yeah, absolutely not.
Grew up fishing walleye,
primarily targeting walleye
and they're far and away my favorite
species to fish for and I
continue to do that to this day.
Even though I spend a lot of time in
the lab studying those fish, I still
go out and try to catch them.
So yeah, I'm no stranger
to working with walleye.
That's for sure.
Did that make this more desirable or
did you know that was going to
happen when you took this job?
Yeah, absolutely not.
I didn't know that was going to
happen when I took the job.
However, we have the
ability to tailor my
research program into
a direction that interests us.
And walleye is certainly one of the
things that really interests me.
Likely because of that exposure I
had as a kid fishing for
walleye, I
personally value them quite a bit.
And really want to see them succeed
both as an aquaculture species and
as a future angling opportunity
for our communities or for
my kids, right?
Does that make the science easier,
or more?
Because there's a natural scientific
drive to find out the answers
for things.
But then when there's personal
passion that comes with it, because
you understand the importance of
getting that answer, do those kind
of dovetail?
Those certainly dovetail, yeah, it
makes it more exciting when you
really have a
passion for the species and,
you know, an interest
in that species and you've seen
those changes in populations over
the years in the lakes that you
fish, right?
So there's that personal connection
that makes it a
lot more fun and interesting to do
the research side of it.
Knowing the fish in the tanks here,
does that help you in the lake at
all?
Absolutely not.
Yeah, absolutely not.
But it does change how I think about
them in the lakes.
Some of the research that we've done
here, you know, makes me think about
how they're going through
reproductive development in the
winter and
a lot of the best research ideas
that I have I develop
while I'm sitting on a lake fishing
for them.
So I understand that one of the new
proposals you've got was looking at
ponds and the impact
that may have on SACS
patients.
Yeah, there's been some really
interesting research into
skewed sex ratios.
At one point, the Wisconsin DNR has
identified that a
lot of the ponds that we're using to
raise walleye for stocking have
female skewed-sex ratios.
And we don't really have a great
handle on what might be
causing that. So we've
worked with Red Cliff Tree Natural
Resources to put together a
proposal.
To try to dig into that.
That's also in collaboration with
the Wisconsin DNR and
University of St. Thomas.
And what are some of the ideas of
why that may be?
Yeah, there's a wide suite
of potential causes for
that sex ratio skew.
One could be as simple as
males take longer to develop
their reproductive
machinery, right?
So they might not be showing up
in those surveys.
So that sex-ratio skew could simply
be it's harder to detect
males when they're present
at that early stage.
It could also be due to
temperature. Or wind
ponds.
That we use to raise walleye for
stocking are often warmer than
our unlined ponds.
And that could contribute to that
sex ratio skew.
It could be due to fertilization
regimes.
We know that nitrate
can be a endocrine disruptor
in some circumstances.
And it also could be leachate
from the liners that are used
to line some of these walleye
rearing ponds
hoping to dig into all of those
potential sources of sex ratio
skew and identify which,
if any of them, are potential
causes.
So talk to me a little bit about how
the interaction with the Namacoggy
and Lake Association breadcrumbs all
came about.
Yeah,
it's really unique to have a
collaboration between a lake
association, a tribal natural
resources agency,
the Wisconsin DNR, and
a state university, right?
So it's a really neat project.
It came about because the
lake association ultimately was
looking for somewhere to
stock their lake with more walleye
so that they could have more angling
opportunities.
And they approach Redcliff
to Red
Cliff tree natural resources to see
if they could raise some walleye for
them.
And Red Cliff has their own stocking
that quotas that they need to meet.
And we had some ponds that we were
not using at the time.
And it just so happened to
work out that we could raise those
fish for them here.
But we wanted to have a study
associated with it.
The study that we came up with is,
can we try to figure out if
there's...
Any adverse consequences to
stocking fish that are raised in
indoor systems into the wild.
Right now it's a lot cheaper to
raise walleye in indoor
system when you're able to give them
a pelleted feed and really
control other sources of mortality
that you can't really control in
ponds.
But if those fish that
are raised indoors can't
get onto wild forage
when they're stocked out, then it
might not be a great option.
So the study is looking at...
Relative success of pond-raised
walleye that are stocked into the
lake, compared to indoor-raise
walleye, that are stalked into the
lake.
And right now, Glyphwick
is actually doing surveys on Lake
Namacoggin to
look at the relative returns of
our indoor and outdoor stocked fish.
And it's a thin clip, right?
Yes, so we gave all
of our indoor fish a right
ventral fin clip,
and all of our outdoor raised fish a
left ventral thin clip,
so we'll be able to see what
proportion of those fish return
in our population assessment
in Mammac Argon.
And how long will that take before
you feel confident?
Well, we've been stocking Mamakogan
with these right
and left ventral fin-cooked fish
for five years
now. So we should have a good
idea with this survey what
those relative returns are.
So really we'll have our results in
two weeks here.
Oh, okay, that quick. Yeah, it'll
take a while to do the data
analysis, of course, and
I'll have limited bandwidth
on how quickly
I can dig into that data.
But yeah, it will be that quick!
Because we were with Cliff with last
fall when they were doing their year
of young survey.
That's when they're actually looking
for it, right?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Absolutely.
I'll just give you one second to get
up on the plane.
There we go.
So with that survey, obviously they
knew that, but that's how all these
things kind of dug together, right?
Yeah, I mean really the
research and management of
our fisheries is a really big
coordinated effort between Tribal
Natural Resources Agencies,
you know, University of
Wisconsin-Stevens Point,
and other state universities,
and Wisconsin DNR.
And there's a lot of different field
crews and a lot different
researchers that are involved
in that coordinated effort, so it's
really neat.
So do you remember what some of the
numbers are from last year,
what you were able to stock in the
dump truck?
I don't off the top of
my head.
I want to say that last year
we stocked
somewhere around 10,000
fish from our ponds
and closer to five or
six thousand fish from indoors
Obviously they have a factory.
Yes, we account for the differential
numbers that were stalked
when we're doing an analysis.
We were out there with you last
year, and we were like, we have no
idea if there's anything to say in
there. Oh, you think there are?
Right, yeah, I can, I
do know that
Glyphwik has captured
2,000 plus
fish already and they have
found clips from both indoors and
outdoors in their survey.
I don't know the relative proportion
yet, so that'll be the data
we dig into here in the next couple
weeks.
I mean, how exciting is it for you,
like, to get that data back?
Because there's one thing to be able
to raise them and release them, but
then to get that in.
Yeah, I mean, it's tremendously
exciting, especially for a project
like that where there's a five-year
build-up to getting those
final results, right?
So there's a lot that went into
being able to see
the final results of this study.
So it's very exciting to finally do
that final survey.
Do you think that the average
fisherman, angler, the person
that goes up in the boat and throws
a line in the water has any idea
about all the different groups,
agencies, and people trying
to make sure there's a fish for
them?
Yeah, I would anticipate that the
average angler probably doesn't
have a good idea of how big of
a coordinated effort it is to
manage walleye populations and
figure out stocking regimes.
But I hope that they do, because
it's really a
cool process and it's
something that I think a lot of
people would value if they knew how
much work went into it.
So, there are questions about
whether it's worth it to stop
fish at all, given the
amount of money, time,
and expense, versus a return
in some lakes where they just
don't thrive.
It's a question of, well, if that's
not a walleye lake, why should we
put more walleye in it?
Let it be a good fanfish,
or it must be a bass than.
Yeah, yeah, I mean there certainly
is that argument
to be made, and in some cases that's
the decision that the DNR makes
is, you know, that lake is going to
be a panfish lake or something like
that. But there is still some value
to stocking lakes that no longer
support natural walleye reproduction
as a put-and-take opportunity,
because if
we let all the walleye lakes that no
longer support natural reproduction
go by the wayside.
We're simply gonna lose a lot of the
opportunities to catch walleye that
we once had, especially
in the southern portions
of the state.
So there is still value to
supporting put-and-take fisheries.
And hopefully going forward, we can
address some of the issues that are
causing that lake to no longer
support natural reproduction.
What would be lost if
Walleye were, you know, because
Winnebago and the wolf, you know,
that system seems fine.
Green Bay seems healthy.
And just, you now, that's where
Walleye are.
And the rest of the state is just
what it is.
Yeah.
I think that we'd
still have a lot
lost by losing those
opportunities in a variety
of lakes because not everybody
gets to experience that
fishing in those water bodies
that do currently support
natural reproduction.
So making those opportunities more
available to more groups of people
that wouldn't otherwise have them
still has a lot of value,
I think.
You've experienced catching fish as
a kid. Do you remember your first
walleye?
I don't remember my first walleye,
but I do remember a
lot of really memorable walleye.
Some of the pictures I've provided
you are from some of my more
memorable walleyes that I still
have very core memories of
catching as a kid.
It's different than,
than fish.
It is.
It really is.
First of all, walleye are just
a really, really neat fish.
They have these really captivating
eyes, as is their namesake.
That's fun to watch.
And they fight different than a
panfish. And they taste different
than panfish, too.
Being able to put all of those
components together
just makes them different, right?
I mean, when you think about the
loss of walleye, would that be more
painful economically or more painful
culturally?
Man, yeah, I mean,
I think both, frankly.
We know that a lot of anglers
in this area specifically
fish to target walleye, right?
So there would be a tremendous
economic loss
if we lost walleye angling
opportunities.
But culturally is
almost more of a loss in
my opinion, both
for the communities that
historically have had
a lot of importance placed on
walleye.
But also for those who haven't
experienced angling for them yet,
right?
I want future generations to
be able to catch walleye and
experience the same thing I did as a
kid when
they're going out fishing for them.
So best-case scenario,
how many years in the future before
it's realistic to see farm
raised while I available in this
place?
Best case scenario,
you can actually buy farm-raised
walleye right now if you want.
There's now three
walleye aquaculture
operations in the state that we're
helping get started and supporting,
and hopefully that just builds
to the point where you
can go to your supermarket or your
fish fry at your local restaurant
and get walleye that were raised
right here Wisconsin.
And maybe that'll happen in the next
five years, maybe 10 years.
It's also possible it'll never
happen and never take off.
There's a lot of challenges facing
aquaculture in the state that
are independent of the species being
raised. So we hope
that the research that we're doing
is gonna help make this
more possible, but that's
the risk of doing this
research on a brand
new species for aquaculture is that
it might not work out.
So what is it for you to come to
work here when you see
the eggs, I mean,
you verbalize the eggs.
You're stripping the eggs and then
you see them.
I mean does it sound weird to say is
there an attachment to these fish?
Um, no, it doesn't, it's not weird
to say that there's an attachment to
these fish because it's a
very hands-on and involved process
and myself and
the other staff here at NADF
are, are very involved
in that process.
As you said, everything from
spawning these fish and
taking care of them through the
larval culture period, um,
raising them up to the age where
they're reproductively mature, we
have to help them at every
step of that.
Journey and yeah as a result
we have a lot of investment
and feel a lot of kind of pride
in the fish that we've helped raise
and the studies and research that
we're doing to help make it
possible.
So when you're draining the ponds,
because you really don't know what's
in there, what's that day like for
you?
Hey, there's fish!
It's tremendously stressful because
a lot of work has gone into
raising
those walleye before we get to that
stage where we're harvesting those
ponds. And you don't get to see what
the results of all that labor and
work is until that day when you
start training.
So it's very stressful and
hopefully very rewarding, but we've
had years where it's been very
disappointing too, and that's just
how it goes.
That's how it is raising fish
generally.
But there's also a lot of
volunteers, the community that gets
built around this.
That's one of the great parts of it
is we
try to set up our
harvest days and stocking
days in a way that the community
can make that connection with
the work that Red Cliff
Treaty National Resources and
ourselves and Wisconsin DNR are
doing.
Oftentimes anglers don't get to
have that hands-on experience with
those fish, and I think it's really
valuable when they're involved in.
Collecting them out of the ponds,
doing those fin clips, and putting
them back into the lake that they're
going to fish later that day, you
know? That's a really unique
experience that helps drive home the
importance of it.
Different connection I'm sure for
them to know, hey I know there's
fish in here.
Yeah, and I might have handled that
fish and gave it the fin clip before
I catch it three years later.
You know, that's a really cool
connection.
What is that normal timeline for
a fish up here?
Yeah I mean it's
when we're stocking the fish that
were raised in the ponds or indoors
we're generally stocking them at
eight or nine inches in
the October or November
of the year that they were raised
and it's
potential or it's possible
that you would catch that fish in
two years after it was stocked
you know you might see that and
it probably reproductively
mature three or four years
after that.
So some of those first fish
are now reproducing, hopefully,
naturally, and they're
some trophy fish.
Absolutely, yeah. You can go in Lake
and Amacogon and catch, especially
some of our earlier years of
stocking, you can catch some of
those fish right now, and if it has
a left or right ventral fin clip,
you know that it came from here as
part of that study.
Alright, I think
we're good here, if there's anything
else you want to add.
I would like it if you could get me
some numbers, you can email that,
it's probably easiest.
Yeah, yeah, for the...
For what we were able to do indoor
and outdoor last year.
And I actually have that for
all five years, if you want.
Oh, great to have. Yeah.
And potentially,
like I said, we'll be getting the
returns. And I can try to
analyze that data quickly so that
you can have the results of that
study to show.
I would say I'll be writing
this through
May into June,
but there can be...