Restoring Nongame Fish in Our Lakes

Abstract

Conservation aquaculture is a special type of fish farming to restore imperiled fish. For decades, small nearshore fish have been disappearing from inland lakes. The widespread declines reveal a crisis for biodiversity and disruption of foodweb energy flow. Lake Ripley is one of many mesotrophic calcareous lakes where environmentally sensitive darters, minnows, and topminnows disappeared. The western banded killifish (Fundulus diaphanous menosa) disappeared from the lake in the 1980s. The Lake Ripley Management District has teamed up with Northey Farms LLC to raise and stock this species in the lake. If the reintroduction is successful, this experiment may lead the way forward to restoring other species declines and local extirpations. One positive indicator is the recent successful reintroduction of the state endangered starhead topminnow (Fundulus dispar) in Lake Wisconsin.