The local North Bay Fish Culture Station in Redbridge will see some significant improvements.
The province made the announcement at the local facility as Graydon Smith, Minister of Natural Resources was on hand with Nipissing MPP Vic Fedeli as they unveiled plans to spend more than $75 million on fish hatcheries across Ontario including the local facility.
Infrastructure upgrades are planned for three critical fish culture stations to increase the production of key fish species and support fish stocking efforts.
The North Bay facility, on Highway 63, has been in operation since the 1930s and will see Improvements to the facility to enable the stocking of over 555,000 high-demand fish, including brook trout, lake trout, and rainbow trout.
“These investments are great news for fishing enthusiasts across Ontario. We are modernizing Ontario’s world-class fish culture and stocking program making sure we are best positioned to meet current and future needs,” said Graydon Smith, Minister of Natural Resources.
“These improvements will contribute to the sustainable management of fish populations and add to the economic and social benefits of fishing in Ontario.”
Peter Addison, MNR manager of the fish culture section based out of Peterborough, says the fish at the local facility are stocked into 200 lakes in central and northern Ontario.
So these fish, specifically in this hatchery are stocked into the area around North Bay, down into cottage country as well. So sort of a 200 kilometres radius from here, and we stock about 500,000 of those species that I just mentioned into those lakes and rivers around this area," said Addison.
"Planned improvements include replacing aging infrastructure with modern equipment, increasing capacity for growing larger fish to enhance the number of fish available to anglers, and making operations more efficient and cost-effective in part by reducing energy consumption."
Fedeli says this significant funding announcement will improve Nipissing’s fishing and tourism sector and contribute to the region's conservation efforts.
"We encourage our community to visit and take a tour of the North Bay Fish Culture station once the infrastructure upgrades are complete so you can see firsthand how fish are raised to stock Ontario lakes and rivers," he said.
At peak times, there are 20 million fish within the ministry’s nine fish culture stations. Over 1.5 million recreational anglers have an economic impact of $1.6 billion per year in Ontario.
Each year the Ministry of Natural Resources stocks approximately eight million fish weighing a combined 200 metric tons into more than 1,200 public waterbodies.
