A promising fish story

By Kate Abbott12:00AM / Wednesday, October 15, 2003Print Story | Email Story

NEW MARLBORO â€” Brown trout, rainbow trout and Atlantic salmon raised at the Berkshire Fish Hatchery will spawn â€”lay and fertilize eggs â€” this fall, for the first time since the hatchery reopened in 2000. Fish raised at the hatchery may also enter local waters again after more than 10 yearsâ€™ absence. The hatchery, the only one in Berkshire County, has been rebuilding its stock in the last three years, according to Director Keith Wilda and Associate Director Kevin Ferry, but it has not had a large enough stock â€” or large enough fish â€” to stock local ponds and rivers. It has also lacked state approval for doing so. It houses three kinds of fish, but until this year, those fish never hatched living eggs that were allowed to develop. This fall, the hatchery will raise eggs from its own fish, and Ferry and Wilda hope to bring the hatchery up to full production by the end of the year. The hatchery reopened three years ago, after five inactive years, and has just produced its first good crop of young fish in 11 years. Over the last three years, the hatcheryâ€™s small stock, ranging from fingerlings to 18-inch trout, have helped in educational and scientific experiments, and stocked a few privately owned ponds. By this time next year, when the newly spawned fish have reached 3 inches long, the hatchery will be well-equipped to expand its programs. Wilda and Ferry hope to have 80,000 baby rainbow trout by the end of the year. Massachusetts releases 600,000 fish into public waters each year, and if it can keep afloat in this tough economy, the Berkshire hatchery will soon be able to contribute to them, Wilda said. The federal government took over the hatchery in 1918, and ran it until 1995. Then it closed for lack of funding. The Western Massachusetts Center for Sustainable Agriculture reopened it in 2000, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst now hosts it, through its Agriculture and Landscape Program. Wilda runs educational programs funded through the state Department of Agricultural Resources. The hatchery itself relies on donations, he said. Right now, it is spawning season at the hatchery. â€œThe fish spawn in the fall. We never know exactly when,â€ said Melissa Hamilton, a member of the foundation staff. For hatchery workers, spawning time means the time to strip eggs from females and milk sperm from males, she said. Wilda and Ferry combine the eggs and sperm in a bowl. â€œIt looks just like tapioca pudding,â€ Hamilton said. When the eggs are fertilized, they are brought inside to mature. Ferry, Wilda and a host of volunteers have already stripped 40,000 round, jellied, translucent eggs from the hatcheryâ€™s rainbow trout. They hope to have 60,000 more, Ferry said, and they expect 80 percent to hatch. They put the eggs in vertical egg trays and keep them dark, as they would be in a shaded stream bed, until they â€œeye upâ€ or begin to develop eyes. Then they move the trays to long metal troughs, Ferry said. Hatchery workers release the fish into water once they have developed tails and can swim. At that point, the young fish are about as long as a thumbnail. The new fish will reach 3 inches long and become known as fingerlings, at the end of the year, Ferry said. It takes 30 years for a trout to reach full growth. Most hatchery-raised trout in the state are caught by fishermen long before that. But the Berkshire hatchery story has been a little different. â€œThere have been no fish spawned at the hatchery in 11 years,â€ Ferry said. â€œWe have a couple of plans for the fish. We would love to be stocking Berkshire waters with them. The state just shut down two hatcheries, so that may be a reality. We would also like to supply eggs to the state.â€ Though they have a stock of salmon, the hatchery does not hatch salmon eggs yet. Ferry and Wilda hope to next year. The hatchery needs three yearsâ€™ certification as a disease-free facility in order to raise the eggs from its own salmon, Wilda said, adding that the hatchery should be able to use eggs in the salmon restoration program in 2004. Wilda and Ferry still strip the eggs from each female salmon, because the fish cannot reabsorb the hard egg casings and would suffer the next time they tried to produce eggs, Wilda said. Next year, they will be able to let the eggs live. They can tell if a female is ready to spawn by pressing gently on its abdomen, he said. If the fish releases eggs, it is ready. The breeding fish live in cement ponds covered by tents to keep out algae and to discourage hungry blue heron. The fish live in water drawn from a natural spring, Hamilton said, and it always stays the same temperature. â€œI put on waders and climb in. Itâ€™s like being surrounded by sharks. They froth around you. Of course, itâ€™s perfectly safe. They donâ€™t have teeth that could harm you,â€ she said. Wilda and Ferry hope to be able to stock local rivers and ponds eventually, she said, but have not yet had fish large enough. They also need state permission, and the Housatonic is contaminated. But some local people have bought fish for their own ponds. The hatchery works with private, state and federal hatcheries, schools and educational programs, and with 83 farms across the state that want to add aquaclture to their crops, Wilda said. Wilda spends four days out of his six-day week working with different farmers who hope to sell fish to sporting clubs, he said. He spends the seventh day with his wife and 1-year-old daughter, who has just said her first word: fish. The state has two other centers like the Berkshire hatchery, in southeast and northeast Massachusetts, but they work mainly with marine culture and shellfish, Ferry said. The Berkshire hatchery works strictly with freshwater fish. Scott Soares, aquaculture coordinator for the Department of Agricultural Resources, coordinates the three hatcheries. The Berkshire hatchery has run educational programs with Flying Cloud summer arts and sciences camp, Mount Everett High School and others over the last three years and will put a Mount Everett intern and UMASS intern to work this fall. The hatchery also works with 4-H groups, Gould Farm residents, 15 to 20 students from Kolburne School for troubled teens and a growing corps of local volunteers, especially from the Isaac Walton League. Besides the families of fish, the hatchery has a nature trail open to the public and has hosted family events, including fishing derbies and a lobster fest this summer and an Earth Day celebration last spring that drew 250 people. Hatchery staff brought kids to a nearby pond to them how to keep water clean. Displays from that event still decorate the officeâ€™s tanks of baby snapping turtles, a painted turtle and 13-year-old African frog named Kermit. The office also has a tank showing representative life in Lake Garfield; and a Monterey Lake tank that demonstrates aquaponics, the process of fertilizing land with water inhabited by fish. The fishesâ€™ discharge provides nitrogen and other nutrients to feed the plants. Bioshelters in Amherst grow a million pounds of tilapia each year and 1,500 ccases of basil each week with the system, using no other fertilizers but fish water, Wilda said. At the Berkshire hatchery, fingerling brown trout help to grow lettuce. The hatchery is also running a â€œfeed study,â€ feeding carnivorous fish on vegetarian fish meal, Ferry said. So far, fish fed on vegetable feed have grown at the same rate as fish eating traditional feeds, he said. Vegetable meal has several advantages, he said: It is cheaper and has less impact on the environment, and the fishesâ€™ excrement breaks down more readily. Hatcheries in New York State and on Cape Cod are running the similar experiments on different kinds of fish, including largemouth bass and tilapia. Tilapia are a South African fish, said to be the first fish ever farm-raised, by the Egyptians. They are also called St. Peterâ€™s Fish, and some people believe Jesus may have eaten them. Ferry lives in an 1850s farm house at the hatchery. When he is not looking after the fish, he also works part time at the Cabbage Hill Farm Foundation, with aquaculture and heritage breed animals.

iBerkshires.com Text Ads

RIBCO Supply

Check out our great lineup of Boss Plows, and spreaders. 2 Locations Clarksburg & Pittsfield!

ribcosupply.com

rk MILES Blding Materials

Are You Ready to Update Your Home? Start With rk MILES. 4 Locations (800)670-7433

www.rkmiles.com

If you would like to contribute information on this article, contact us at info@iberkshires.com.

Lanesborough Fifth-Graders Win Snowplow Name Contest

02:13PM / Tuesday, December 23, 2025

LANESBOROUGH, Mass. — One of the snowplows for Highway District 1 has a new name: "The Blizzard Boss."

The name comes from teacher Gina Wagner's fifth-grade class at Lanesborough Elementary School.

The state Department of Transportation announced the winners of the fourth annual "Name A Snowplow" contest on Monday.

The department received entries from public elementary and middle school classrooms across the commonwealth to name the 12 MassDOT snowplows that will be in service during the 2025/2026 winter season.

The purpose of the contest is to celebrate the snow and ice season and to recognize the hard work and dedication shown by public works employees and contractors during winter operations.

"Thank you to all of the students who participated. Your creativity allows us to highlight to all, the importance of the work performed by our workforce," said interim MassDOT Secretary Phil Eng.

"Our workforce takes pride as they clear snow and ice, keeping our roads safe during adverse weather events for all that need to travel. ?To our contest winners and participants, know that you have added some fun to the serious take of operating plows. ?I'm proud of the skill and dedication from our crews and thank the public of the shared responsibility to slow down, give plows space and put safety first every time there is a winter weather event."

View Full Story