Bayfield County project gets federal funding for fish habitat

Wisconsin DNR press release and photo

MADISON – The first of what’s hoped to become a steady stream of federal money to restore fish habitat is helping expand a grassroots effort on Bayfield County’s Eau Claire Chain of Lakes.

The $15,000 in federal funding will enable the “Fish Sticks” project partners – the Eau Claire Conservation Club, the Eau Claire Property Owners Association, Bayfield Land and Water Conservation Department and the Department of Natural Resources -- to expand their work with willing landowners to place trees from upland sources in shallow water in front of their properties. The trees will provide important spawning habitat for fish, insects for them, and hiding places in areas where much of this critical habitat had previously been removed.

“This is great news,” says Mike Staggs, fisheries director for the Department of Natural Resources. “We’ve got a project funded and the promise of more.”

Hoping to emulate the success of a long-running partnership to benefit waterfowl and hunters that restores open water wetlands, the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies has recently launched their North American Fish Habitat Action Plan (www.fishhabitat.org).

“The idea is to bring together people at the local and regional levels who want to help improve fish and aquatic habitat,” Staggs says. While government agencies are often important players in the partnerships, the local interest is critical.

Partnerships of public and private entities can apply to a National Fish Habitat Board for formal recognition, which allows them to get in the short line for federal funding from a variety of sources. As of March 2009, there were 10 formally recognized partnerships.

So far, Wisconsin is part of two formally recognized partnerships, and part of three more “candidate” partnerships now working toward formal federal recognition, Staggs says.

The Eau Claire Chain Lakes “Fish Sticks” project is a project under the Glacial Lakes Habitat Restoration Partnership that was formally recognized earlier this year. The $15,000 in stimulus money going to that project is the first federal money the partnership has received.

The Midwest Driftless Area Restoration project has been formally recognized as a partnership and has successfully secured more than $1 million in federal funding in recent years, most of it through the federal Natural Resource Conservation Service.

States, tribes, federal agencies and non governmental agencies in the Great Lakes region are working now toward submitting later this summer an application for federal recognition of the Great Lakes Basin Fish Habitat Partnership. President Obama has identified $1.5 million in the $475 million Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in his proposed 2010 budget to go to the partnership as seed money for that group.

Wisconsin is participating in the Fishers and Farmers effort, a partnership to work with landowners to add value to farms while restoring aquatic habitat, both on site and downstream on the Mississippi River. Approved projects are led by landowners, with flexible cost-share funding and technical support provided by conservation partners.

Wisconsin recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding to participate in a developing national reservoir habitat partnership. Many aging reservoirs (sometimes called “flowages” in Wisconsin) need habitat improvement and Wisconsin hopes to secure additional federal funding through this partnership, which is seeking recognition later this year.

Staggs serves on the steering team for the Glacial Lakes Habitat Restoration and Reservoir partnerships and longtime DNR fisheries management staff are assigned to focus on each of the partnerships.

“Fish Sticks” to benefit fish in Bayfield County

BAYFIELD – Call it the piscatorial Field of Dreams.

Mere months after felled trees were dragged across the ice on Upper Eau Claire Lake as part of a grassroots partnership to restore fish habitat in the near-shore areas on this lake, hundreds of fish are using the trees.

Underwater photos taken earlier taken this month show a young muskellunge swimming past two tree trunks on the lakebed, a school of panfish darting through branches, and the dark stripe of bluntnose minnows.

“These trees are a piece of the fishery habitat puzzle that has been missing for quite a while and I am excited by the early indications of success,” says Scott Toshner, the Department of Natural Resources fish biologist working on the project. “Hopefully, we can get enough waterfront landowners involved so that we will see positive benefits to the lakes fishery as a whole.”

This year, the Eau Claire Lakes Property Owners Association and the Eau Claire Conservation Club are working with Toshner to find willing property owners to let them place more trees in the shallow water in front of their property on Upper, Middle and Lower Eau Claire lakes.

They learned recently that their “Fish Sticks” project will receive $15,000 in federal funding through the Glacial Lakes Habitat Restoration Partnership. “It’s a great opportunity to be able to expand the project,” Toshner says.

The Eau Claire Chain project grew out of an earlier project on Bony Lake, another lake in the same chain, where property owners in 2007 launched one of the largest shoreland habitat restoration efforts in Wisconsin.

The next year, the Eau Claire Conservation Club got involved on Upper Eau Claire Lake, and 2009 saw a continued effort on Bony, Middle Eau Claire and Upper Eau Claire lakes by the club, the property owners and the DNR.

To date, 395 trees have been placed in Bony Lake, where there were only 89 pieces to begin with. Upper Eau Claire has added 98 trees and Middle Eau Claire, 49 trees.

“These trees are very important habitat because they provide refuge, forage, cover and spawning areas for pretty much every fish in the lake for at least part of their life cycles,” Toshner says. “The turtles, ducks, kingfisher, otter, mink, beaver and other wildlife are using it at the same time.”

For this year’s Eau Claire chain lakes project, the property owners association mailed out to its members a brochure the group helped Toshner develop. Members have also been talking the project up. So far, a handful of property owners have stepped forward, and Toshner expects that to increase.