Southeastern Fishes Council
In the News
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Conservation Group Ready To Fill Lakes With Florida Bass
March 23, 2004
Release from:
Del Milligan
The Ledger
TARRYTOWN -- When the Florida Bass Conservation Center opens next year, fishery biologists will be able to stock 2.5 million largemouth bass fingerlings into the state's 7,710 named lakes.
The $10 million bass factory, situated at the Richloam Fish Hatchery north of Lakeland in the Green Swamp on State Road 471, will produce four times as many pure Florida strain bass than the hatchery has yielded since it was built in 1965.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission project -- a state-of-the-art fish production center -- will help fishery managers compensate against factors that threaten the quality of freshwater fishing in Florida.
Commission vice chairman Herky Huffman, one of about 70 public officials at the center's groundbreaking ceremonies on Feb. 26, pointed out that habitat loss and degradation from development and agricultural runoff, incursion of northern strain bass and the threat of diseases like the Largemouth Bass Virus make the center imperative to sustained fishing success.
Florida has more recreational anglers than any state in the union, and freshwater fishing generates a $2 billion economic impact each year, according to the latest U.S. Census Bureau survey.
"When we talk about tourism in Florida and the economic benefits, people think of Disney World and some of the major attractions," said Sen. Paula Dockery, R-Lakeland.
"But really, more and more, tourism in Florida is becoming nature-based tourism."
Dockery worked with John Laurent of Bartow, a former state senator who is now a Polk County judge, to get the project started three years ago. They helped persuade the Florida Legislature to provide $3 million from the state's general revenue. The remainder of the $10 million was obtained through federal grants like the Sportfish Restoration Project.
Vogel Brothers Construction Company of Lakeland is building the center, situated on 186 acres carved out of the Withlacoochee State Forest in southern Sumter County. Work is scheduled to be completed by the fall of 2005, taking about 18 months.
All the bass raised at the hatchery today comes from 74 outdoor ponds, all less than 11/2 acres, that yield 600,000 fingerling bass annually. These ponds will be modified for continued use and supplement the new indoor spawning facility.
The project includes a 30,000 square-foot, two-story production and research unit with climatecontrolled raceways for spawning bass, research tanks and a laboratory to study genetics and disease.
In addition to the indoor facilities, there will be an outdoor harvest pavilion with 14 spawning raceways that will be covered to prevent eagles and ospreys from feeding on the fingerlings.
Perhaps the biggest factor in growing bass at a higher rate is the ability to feed them nutritional pellets, said hatchery administrator Rick Stout.
"We now have the ability with feed and equipment technology to train largemouth bass to eat commercial feed pellets," said Stout.
Annual production goals will be 1.5 million fingerling bass 111/2 inches long and 1 million fingerlings 4 inches long.
Bass grown at the hatchery have replenished natural populations at more than 100 Florida lakes.
Lakes that are relatively healthy now, Lake Kissimmee for example, may need supplementing in the future because of drought or fish kills.
All bass grown at the center will be tested for Largemouth Bass Virus before fish are certified as pure Florida strain bass.
The gene pool for Florida's native largemouth bass, Micropterus salmoides floridanus, has been diluted with northern subspecies of bass, partly because small private lakes and ponds have been stocked with fish from other states.
Florida strain bass grow larger than northern varieties, but intergrades have spread as far south as Lakeland, leaving only the central and southern peninsula with true Florida bass.
Florida has three black bass species in addition to the largemouth -- shoal bass, spotted bass and Suwannee bass.
Along with bass, the center will also provide 1 million striped and sunshine bass fingerlings, 3 million bluegill and 250,000 channel catfish each year.
A $6 million visitor's center is planned at the center, though funding has not been secured. It will be a public/private partnership.
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