Hackettstown State Fish Hatchery Stocked a Record 5 Million Fish in 2017

The Hackettstown State Fish Hatchery in Warren County stocked a record five million cold, cool, and warm water fish consisting of 15 species in 2017, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin announced today.

The fish, totaling 5,082,841 with a total weight of more than 26,000 pounds, were produced at the location and many were stocked in approximately 200 waters throughout the state from March through November.

Fishery staff with Northern Pike

“This is an incredible achievement by our staff at the Hatchery,” said Commissioner Martin. “Anglers are reporting catching 40-inch Northern pike, 10-pound walleyes, and 50-inch muskellunge in many of our waters where these species are stocked. It is through the Hatchery’s staff and their hard work that New Jersey is a world class fishing destination for anglers.”

Those five million plus fish included cool water species such as Northern Pike, Walleye, and Muskellunge. Hackettstown stocked 308,808 Northern pike, 2.3 million walleye, and 343,311 muskellunge for New Jersey anglers.

The season also included strong year classes of warm water species such as channel catfish – 598,174, largemouth bass – 110,445, and hybrid striped bass – 47,315. These three species are providing excellent, exciting recreation for anglers throughout the state.

Not all the Hackettstown fish stocked are directly available to anglers, however. County mosquito commissions utilized 548,000 fathead minnows, and Gambusia (commonly called mosquitofish) to combat mosquito larvae in stagnant waters. Since 1991, the hatchery has reared more than 5.6 million fish to help combat mosquito borne diseases such as West Nile Virus, Eastern Equine Encephalitis and Chikungunya.

In addition, 655,000 golden shiners were stocked in Round Valley Reservoir to help boost the forage base in one of New Jerseys best cold water fisheries. The hatchery has stocked more than 1.5 million shiners in Round Valley over the past five years.

In addition, some 171,788 fish of other species were raised in 2017 setting the facility’s new yearly production record at 5,082,841, far surpassing the previous high of 3,774,885 set in 2014.

Some of the many factors that contributed to a great season included the successful collection of broodstock and their eggs, an excellent hatch and extensive on-site pond management. Modern fish diets and nutrition also played important roles, as well as ideal temperatures, sunlight and precipitation for adequate growth, proper health monitoring and avoiding the hazards of overcrowding.

Fishery staff handling fingerlings at Hackettstown

The Hackettstown State Fish Hatchery opened in 1912 and is predominantly a put, grow, and take fish culture operation. This simply means that most of the fish are stocked as sub-legal fry and fingerlings that will take a year or more growing in the wild to reach a catchable size. The fish-rearing operation requires a combination of intensive fish culturing both indoors in fiberglass tanks and outdoors in earthen ponds.

“The Hackettstown Hatchery has stocked nearly 20 million cool and warm water fish over the past five years,” said Division of Fish and Wildlife Director Larry Herrighty. “Staff take immense pride in the quality of fish produced at the hatchery and constantly strive to find ways to improve both hatchery operations and the number of fish produced. This is a great way to conclude the celebration of our agency’s 125th anniversary and I commend our staff at Hackettstown for a job well done.”

Funding for operations at the Hackettstown State Fish Hatchery is provided by anglers through fees derived from the purchase of fishing licenses and by the Federal Aid in Sportfish Restoration program.

More information about the Hackettstown State Fish Hatchery,
including its history, feature articles, species raised and stocking summaries can be found at state.nj.us/dep/fgw/hacktown.htm

Source: http://www.nj.gov/dep/newsrel/2018/18_0003.htm

A Dangerous Time for Hibernating Bats

You may be spending more time indoors now that it is winter, but New Jersey's non-migrating bats have gone into hibernation. It is a dangerous time for them no, particularly because of white-nose syndrome. This is caused by a fungus that was originally introduced inadvertently by humans exploring caves in New York State.

The disease has decimated many bat species. It scars their wings and disrupts their hibernation patterns. One of its effects is that it causes them to wake and fly around when they should be sleeping, and so their energy reserves deplete and they die from starvation, thirst and exhaustion.

Bats are the single largest consumer of night-flying insects like mosquitoes, beetles and moths. Not only does that help humans be less bothered outdoors in the summer and decrease the spread of mosquito-borne diseases, but it this natural insect control helps our Garden State agriculture.

A little brown bat with white nose syndrome.

The most affected of New Jersey's bats is the little brown bat which was once common but has now become rare. NJ's largest hibernaculum is the old Hibernia Mine in Morris County. Before the syndrome hit our state in 2007, Hibernia was the winter home for 34,000 little brown bats. Now, there are only about 400.

The best we can say currently is that this small population seems to be leveling off.

Big brown bats seem to be unaffected by white-nose syndrome and it may be because they hibernate in different locations than the little brown bat. They prefer cold but dry places, such as attics. (If you discover bats in your attic or home, don't try to remove them on your own. Call a bat removal expert, who can safely remove them.) Caves tend to be warmer and have higher humidity which may increase the fungus spreading. When the big brown bats do use subterranean locations, they stay close to entrances where it is colder. They may, if the weather warms enough, even awaken, seek water and perhaps breed.

Modifications in the Hibernia cave to increase air flow may drop temperatures slightly, inhibiting the growth of white-nose fungus.

Little brown bats, northern long-eared bats, tri-colored bats and eastern small-footed bats are all affected by white-nose syndrome, and have been recommended for inclusion on the state's endangered species list.


More on New Jersey's bats
http://wildlife.rutgers.edu/bats/
http://www.conservewildlifenj.org/protecting/projects/bat/white-nose/
Bat Conservation International www.batcon.org.

Atlantic Leatherback Sea Turtles May Get Endangered Status

Female leatherback turtle digging in the sand in USVI - via Wikimedia

Federal wildlife officials say they are reviewing the status of a sea turtle that lives in the northwestern Atlantic Ocean to see if it should be listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act.

The National Marine Fisheries Service says it is conducting the review of the Northwest Atlantic population of leatherback sea turtles. The turtles live all over the world, including off of the mid-Atlantic states, New England and Canada.

Sea turtles spend almost their entire lives in the sea, and when active they often come to the surface to breathe, but can remain underwater for several hours at a time while resting.

Though most sea turtles inhabit warm, tropical and subtropical waters, they migrate northward as water temperatures increase in the late spring and summer and remain in northern waters until late fall. From late May until November, New Jersey's coastal waters provide important seasonal foraging habitat.

The leatherback (Dermochelys coriacea) gets its common name for its unique shell which is composed of a layer of thin, tough, rubbery skin, strengthened by thousands of tiny bone plates that makes it look “leathery.” The leatherback is the only sea turtle that lacks a hard shell.

Leatherback turtles are the world's largest sea turtles. They can weigh up to 2,000 pounds. They are also the deepest diving turtle with dives of more than 4,000 feet below sea level.

They range in size as adults from 4 to 6 feet (130 – 183 cm), but the largest leatherback ever recorded was almost 10 feet (305 cm) from the tip of its beak to the tip of its tail and weighed in at 2,019 pounds (916 kg). 660 to 1,100 pounds (300 – 500 kg) is typical.

Leatherbacks have delicate, scissor-like jaws that would be damaged by anything but soft-bodied animals. Surprisingly, they feed almost exclusively on jellyfish which are composed mostly of water and not a good source of nutrients. This penchant for jellyfish also makes them vulnerable to plastic bags and trash in oceans which resemble jellyfish in the water.

Leatherbacks are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The fisheries service says it's collecting comments until Feb. 5 about whether the northwestern Atlantic's population should be included on the U.S. Endangered Species list.

More Info

• conserveturtles.org/information-about-sea-turtles-leatherback-sea-turtle
• nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/l/leatherback-sea-turtle
• conservewildlifenj.org/species/fieldguide/view/Dermochelys%20coriacea

Eagles Across New Jersey

A bald eagle in flight at Mountain Lakes Preserve in Princeton, New Jersey.

Eagles are probably New Jersey's most successful comeback story when it comes to endangered species. But that doesn't mean that we can be complacent about that recovery.

Bald eagles have been removed from the federal endangered species list, although they are still protected by other federal laws. In New Jersey, eagles are still considered an endangered species during the breeding season, which runs from January through June. The rest of the year they fall under the threatened species category.

In Sussex County, for example, the number of chicks that fledged dropped this year from a year before. The number of known, observed, eagle nests also dropped. This information, according to the 2017 Bald Eagle Report issued by the NJ Division of Fish and Wildlife, shows a slight decrease in the number of eaglets that made that first flight was down slightly across the state. There were 216 last year and only 190 this year.

That drop is not catastrophic and may not continue in 2018.


Bald Eagle Fledgling 26 June 2013 New Jersey USA from Michael Black on Vimeo.
A New Jersey fledging before it has acquired its distinctive white "bald" head.

Mortality in chicks is usually due to adverse weather at critical times in the nesting period, and predation.

Bald eagles in NJ and across the country were much more common until the late 1950s when the population plummeted. Why? The main cause was human use of the pesticide DDT which had entered the food chain and caused female eagles to lay eggs with very thin shells, which did not survive incubation.

By the time DDT was banned in the U.S. in 1972, there was only one nesting pair of eagles in New Jersey.

Twenty years later, biologists throughout the Northeast were importing young eaglets that could be artificially raised (hacked) until they could fledge. Those young eagles would range in wide areas but generally will return to the area where they fledged to find a mate.

New Jersey had 23 nesting pairs by 2000, 48 pairs by 2005, 82 pairs by 2010 and 150 pairs by 2015.

Though the monitoring program is run by staff from the Division of Fish and Wildlife, most of the observations are done by volunteers. These devoted folks check assigned nests at least weekly, note when eggs are present, how many hatch and whether or not those young fledge.

In the article "Eagle fledglings, known nests down across county, state" from the New Jersey Herald, the focus was on Sussex County where the number of young eagles dropped from 20 in 10 known nests, to 12 in only 8 observed nests this past spring.

A nest on Minisink Island in the Delaware River had nesting eagles on February 28 but it was reported that the nest failed on March 9 after a major storm moved through the area the week before. That storm brought a temperature drop from the 60s to the low 40s, along with high winds, hail and more than a half-inch of rain.

Nest mortality often takes 4 of 5 fledglings before they reach maturity.

Sometimes our Jersey eagles leave the state. One female eagle that was banded in 2009 at the Newton Reservoir site has been spotted from Maryland to New York. Another Newton eagle banded in 2011 is now nesting at a reservoir near Middletown, N.Y.  Borders don't mean anything to eagles.

Ravens in New Jersey

Statue of a raven on the grounds of the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic Site in Philadelphia, PA
by Midnightdreary via Wikimedia Commons

Ravens are birds that have been a part of many mythologies. They were companions to the Norse god Odin. Native Americans thought of them as tricksters. And almost everyone knows that "Nevermore" raven in Edgar Allan Poe’s famous poem by that name.

But the real life raven is one of several larger-bodied species of the genus Corvus. There is no consistent distinction between "crows" and "ravens", and these names have been assigned to different species chiefly on the basis of their size. Crows are generally considered smaller than ravens, and the largest raven species are the common raven and the thick-billed raven.

The common raven, Corvus corax, has the widest distribution of any of the Corvidae family that includes crows, jays, nutcrackers, magpies and related birds such as rooks, jackdaws, and choughs. It is also the largest and heaviest of the passerines, or perching birds. And you may have heard that it is also one of the smartest birds.

Have you seen ravens in New Jersey?  They were once numerous in our state. They disappeared as a nesting bird in New Jersey in the 1920s. But in the early 1990s they began to breed once more in NJ and their numbers have been increasing ever since.

If you are curious about our Jersey ravens, the Wednesday, January 10 meeting of the Montclair Bird Club will feature “Return of the Raven,” presented by writer and environmental consultant Rick Radis. He will cover the historic status of the common raven in eastern North America, its return and its present status. Rick Radis is a past editor of NJ Birds, NJ Audubon Magazine and other conservation publications. His writing, editorial and photography have appeared in the New York Times, TNY, and many other national and regional publications.

The club's meeting on Jan. 10 begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Union Congregational Church in Montclair. The meeting is free and open to the public.

Common raven
By Stephencdickson - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, Link

NJ State Park Online Campground Reservation System

I don't think many of us are thinking about camping in New Jersey in January, but on a cold winter day when you're housebound might be the best time to consider outings for the other three seasons.

Campsite in Wharton State Forest

I have very fond memories of taking my family camping in our state parks when my sons were younger. They especially enjoyed our tent and cabin vacations at Stokes and Wharton and swimming in the tea-colored Pinelands water of Atsion Lake.

This is also a opportune time to consider future trips because  the Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Parks and Forestry has launched a new online campground reservation system. This NJ Outdoors online reservations system can be accessed at www.camping.nj.gov.

It provides flexible search capabilities for finding and reserving tent sites, cabins or shelters within the New Jersey State Park System, and is part of a broader, ongoing DEP effort to improve customer service and information services through online and mobile-device technologies.

Back when I was making reservations for campsite (and especially for the limited cabins), it was all done by snail mail with an occasional phone call. You could wait a few weeks only to find out that nothing was available.

“The New Jersey State Park System offers some of the best camping experiences found anywhere,” Commissioner Martin said. “This new reservation system will make it easier than ever to plan an affordable weekend getaway or vacation at our great state parks, forests and recreation areas to create memories that will last a lifetime.”

The system, developed in partnership with the New Jersey Division of NICUSA Inc., went live in December, and it provides updated maps and park information filters that allow users to more easily check site availability and plan visits around amenities and recreational opportunities available at each park.

Features of NJ Outdoors include:

• The ability to easily update or cancel a campground reservation;
• A list of current discounts available at state parks;
• A document upload feature for pet license and vaccination documents to make check-in easier at pet-friendly campsites;
• An optional account creation feature, which allows campers to securely store their payment and access their camping history;
• A real-time notification system that alerts campers of events that could affect their stay or upcoming reservations.

“Whether your interest is hiking, kayaking or simply relaxing by the campfire, it is our sincerest hope that residents and visitors will find this new reservation system a convenient portal into planning their camping adventures in a park system that offers a wide range of opportunities for enjoying the outdoors,” said Division of Parks and Forestry Director Mark Texel.

The State Park Service boasts 50 state parks, forests, recreation areas, battlefields, and marinas. Camping is available at 19 sites, from Brendan Byrne State Forest in the Pinelands to Stokes State Forest near the Delaware Water Gap to Parvin State Park in Salem County.

Atsion Lake in Wharton State Forest

Want to get news and photos of what is happening in our New Jersey State Parks?  Follow them on Instagram at www.instagram.com/newjerseystateparks/ and on Facebook  www.facebook.com/NewJerseyStateParks/

Source: NJDEP - News Release