The sportfishing industry’s fisheries conservation foundation seeks to ensure fishing’s future
Through an ongoing partnership between the sportfishing habitat conservation and research foundation, the FishAmerica Foundation, and the Brunswick Public Foundation, $61,000 was awarded to four grassroots projects to enhance water quality and improve fisheries resources in local communities in Minnesota, Indiana, Florida and Wisconsin.
“Each of these projects directly helps to achieve the dual goals of enhancing the country’s water resources for recreational use by the public while engaging local citizens in states and communities where Brunswick facilities are located,” said, Kevin Grodzki, spokesperson for the Brunswick Public Foundation. “Our decades-long partnership with the FishAmerica Foundation is testimony that businesses, anglers and natural resource agencies can form successful partnerships to help ensure recreational fishing’s future.”
These projects have the endorsement of the state’s natural resources agency to ensure their technical efficacy as well as to ensure that they meet the resource management and water quality goals of those states.
Each project relies on substantial volunteer labor and additional support from local groups concerned with restoring and enhancing environmental conditions that can support healthy sportfish populations while providing the public access to fishing opportunities.
“FishAmerica’s support for these projects is helping to leverage more than $190,000 in matching dollars provided by the four projects,” said Glenn Hughes, president of the American Sportfishing Association, FAF’s parent organization. “Brunswick’s investment is being leveraged four to one in addition to the countless volunteer hours that will be provided by these grassroots projects.”
Projects supported during this funding cycle are:
• The University of Florida Foundation/Whitney Laboratory for Marine Bioscience in St. Augustine, Fla. will work to restore large scale native clam populations in the Indian River Lagoon to enhance water quality and habitat through the natural capacity of clams to filter large volumes of water.
• The Great River Greening project in, St. Paul, Minn. seeks to restore shorelines to improve critical fish habitat, improve water quality and increase aquatic habitat through the installation of floating treatment wetlands in this very popular public urban fishing pond within Hallett’s Pond Natural Area in Saint Peter, Minn.
• The Clearwaters Chapter of Trout Unlimited, in Eau Claire, Wis. will restore a section of Hay Creek, a designated brook trout reserve, with four miles of public access/fishing easements, by reshaping, re-sloping, and stabilizing stream banks, supplemented with the addition of in-stream hydraulic and fish habitat structures.
• The Indiana Bass Federation, New Albany, Ind., working in conjunction with the Indiana DNR, will place artificial habitat structures and re-stock largemouth bass at the 2,060-acre Cecil M. Harden Reservoir and at Indiana’s largest reservoir (10,750 acres) Monroe Lake.
The FishAmerica Foundation is the American Sportfishing Association’s conservation and research foundation. We unite the sportfishing industry with conservation groups, government natural resource agencies, corporations and foundations to invest in sportfish and habitat conservation and research across the country. Since 1983, the FishAmerica Foundation has awarded $12.1 million to 1,007 projects in all fifty states and Canada to enhance fish populations, restore fishery habitats, improve water quality and advance fishery research to improve sportfishing opportunities and help ensure recreational fishing’s future.
Established in 1997, the Brunswick Public Foundation is a not-for-profit Corporation that supports community development primarily through contributions to local United Way Chapters and health and wellness organizations. In addition, the Foundation supports organizations that enhance the country’s water resources for the recreational use by the public.
The American Sportfishing Association (ASA) is the sportfishing industry’s trade association committed to representing the interests of the sportfishing and boating industries as well as the entire sportfishing community. We give the industry and anglers a unified voice when emerging laws and policies could significantly affect sportfishing business or sportfishing itself. ASA invests in long-term ventures to ensure the industry will remain strong and prosperous, as well as safeguard and promote the enduring economic, conservation and social values of sportfishing in America. ASA also gives America’s 49 million anglers a voice in policy decisions that affect their ability to sustainably fish on our nation’s waterways through Keep America Fishing, our national angler advocacy campaign. America’s anglers generate nearly $50 billion in retail sales with a $125 billion impact on the nation’s economy creating employment for 800,000 people.
