A Diversity of Sport Fish Restoration State Projects

The Dingell-Johnson Sport Fish Restoration program (SFR) was created in 1950 to provide grant funds to state and territorial fish and wildlife agencies to restore and better manage America's declining fishery resources.  Through the purchases of fishing equipment, motorboat and small engine fuels and import duties, the SFR Program has provided $6.5 billion to states since its inception.  SFR was modeled after the Pittman-Robertson Wildlife Restoration program of 1937 and together they represent very successful user pay, user benefit programs.  For the years 1990 to 2009, $4.5 billion was spent on SFR projects with approximately 56% spent on recreation projects and 44% on population and habitat projects.  In 2011, States received over $364 million in SFR funds.  Activities funded through SFR include: 1) research and survey; 2) sport fish hatchery development and maintenance; 3) boating and fishing access, including land acquisition; 4) aquatic habitat protection and improvement; 5) aquatic resource education; and 6) coordination, communication, planning, and outreach.  This symposium features projects recognized by the AFS Fisheries Administration Section, but nationally there are thousands of others completed and ongoing.  A sampling showing the diversity of projects includes: 1) replacement of a dock in Columbia County, Oregon to provide safe accessibility to all including the mobility impaired; 2) restoration of Rio Grande cutthroat trout in New Mexico to more than 40 miles and 20 acres of stream and lake habitat since 2002; 3) the acquisition of 358-acre Clough Island near Duluth, MN which will help protect the largest estuary in Lake Superior; 4) Creek Kids in Alabama which uses the aquatic environment as an outdoor classroom to teach kids about watersheds, water quality, barriers to aquatic populations and the fish and aquatic invertebrates; 5) Liming of recreational trout fisheries in West Virginia streams severely degraded as a result of acid precipitation or acid mine drainage; 6) research on whirling disease in rainbow trout in Colorado which has led to huge advances in prevention of introduction of the disease and the development of resistant strains; 7) the construction of a new fish hatchery in Alaska that provide twice the production of previous hatcheries at their peak performance; and 8) the Lake Mohave Habitat Enhancement Project in Nevada which creates suitable habitat to enhance sport fish species in Lake Mojave.