Rainbow trout, chinook salmon, steelhead and seven other species and one hybrid were among the 21,116,476 fish – weighing a combined 333 tons – stocked in Michigan’s public waters so far this year.

DNR staff made 381 trips to nearly 800 stocking sites including Great Lakes, inland lakes and rivers. Eighteen specialized trucks traveled 103,618 miles and 2,619 hours to deliver the valuable cargo.

The number and type of fish stocked varies depending on stocking requests, hatchery rearing assignments, and the source and temperature of each facility’s rearing water. Michigan has six state hatcheries and two cooperative hatcheries that together produce the species, strain and size of fish requested by fisheries managers. These fish are delivered at a specific time and location to ensure their survival and success.

Each hatchery has stocked the following fish (details on weight and sites are available on the DNR’s fish stocking webpage):

• Harrietta State Fish Hatchery (west of Cadillac) stocked 1,126,801 brown and rainbow trout.
• Marquette State Fish Hatchery (near Marquette) stocked 549,765 yearling lake trout, brook trout and splake (a hybrid of lake trout and brook trout).
• Oden State Fish Hatchery (near Petoskey) stocked 659,638 brown and rainbow trout.
• Platte River State Fish Hatchery (near Honor) stocked 2,137,473 fish including yearling Atlantic and coho salmon and spring fingerling chinook salmon.
• Thompson State Fish Hatchery (near Manistique) stocked 1,011,134 fish including yearling steelhead and spring fingerling chinook salmon.
• Wolf Lake State Fish Hatchery (near Kalamazoo) stocked 1,154,861 fish including yearling steelhead, spring fingerling chinook salmon, Great Lakes strain muskellunge and channel catfish.

A cooperative teaching hatchery at Lake Superior State University (in Sault Ste. Marie) stocked 34,973 Atlantic salmon.

This year’s total included 14.4 million walleye spring fingerlings and fry. These fish are reared in ponds by the DNR and tribal partners, with extensive support provided by local sporting organizations. The fish were stocked at 125 inland lakes and rivers and seven Great Lakes sites.

Learn more at michigandnr.com/fishstock or by contacting Steve VanDerLaan, 269-668-2696, ext. 26 or Elyse Walter, 517-284-5839.

At the Michigan Alliance for Environmental and Outdoor Education annual conference earlier this month in Port Huron, 10 alliance members were honored for their work. Outgoing alliance board president Cindy Fitzwilliams-Heck said these award-winners have “devoted hours and careers to promoting environmental literacy in Michigan.”

Each year, five award levels are open to competitive nominations, including the two highest honors: the Julian W. Smith Outdoor Education Award and the William B. Stapp Environmental Education Award. This year’s winners include:

• The Julian W. Smith Outdoor Education Award went to Wil Reding, an instructor at Kalamazoo Valley Community College and Western Michigan University and owner of “Rent a Rambling Naturalist." Reding earned the award for inspiring current and next-generation citizens to embrace learning in the outdoors by setting his own example of love for the outdoors.
• The William B. Stapp Environmental Education Award went to Kevin Frailey, the DNR’s Education Services director and formerly the director of Michigan’s Science Olympiad, adjunct science faculty at Lansing Community College, director of Information and Education at Michigan United Conservation Clubs, and conservation education supervisor at the Idaho Department of Fish and Game. Frailey and his staff have created programs that encourage educators to use the outdoors as their classroom, while meeting their science standard requirements.
• The President’s Award is given by the outgoing alliance president to the person deemed instrumental to the president’s success. Fitzwilliam-Heck chose Brittany Burgess, program manager at the University of Michigan Museum of Natural History. Burgess moved from president-elect to president of the alliance Oct. 7.
• The Recognition Award honors significant contributions to environmental education and outdoor education in a specialized area such as journalism, photography, curriculum development or interpretation. This year’s recipients were Mike Reed, curator of Informal Education at the Detroit Zoological Society, and Alan Heavner, owner/operator of Heavner Canoe Livery.
• The Appreciation Award recognizes those who’ve made significant contributions toward creating, delivering, managing or sustaining environmental and outdoor education programs. Heather Rawlings, a wildlife service biologist with the U.S. Department of Interior, earned this year’s award.
• Volunteer Service Awards honor those who give their time and skills for more than one year to a school, college, camp, outdoor center, zoo, nature center or other venue that promotes environmental or outdoor education. This year’s recipients were Greg and Michele Petrosky, Mike Mencotti and Larry Arbanas.

During the awards ceremony, 11 members were newly certified through the nationally accredited Environmental Educator Certification Program, an arduous, five-strand process: Eileen Boekestein, Becky Durling, Natalie Elkins, Zakiya Jackson, Christine Kelly, Misty Klotz, Mackenzie Maxwell, Amy Morrell, Rashmi Overbeek, Tracy Page and Lauren Westerman.

Questions? Contact Natalie Elkins, alliance awards committee chair, at 517-290-0687. More background on the alliance's two major awards is available in the linked photo/info folder referenced in the bulletin intro, above.

Temperatures around the state are dipping into the chillier numbers, with some regions seeing snow fly! If you're planning to camp or enjoy a bonfire, when it comes to firewood, please wait until you get to your destination to buy firewood locally.  

Aged or seasoned wood still can transport invasive species from one location to another. Just because the wood is dry doesn’t mean that bugs can’t crawl onto it. Only certified, heat-treated wood bearing the U.S. Department of Agriculture stamp is safe from pests and diseases. If you can’t find certified firewood – buy it where you burn it! This and other tips are available on the Firewood Awareness Month webpage.

In honor of a career that includes more than 45 years with the DNR, Al Stewart, the department's upland game bird specialist, received the Dodge Sportsman Award last month at Meadow Brook Hall’s Gourmet Wild Game Dinner in Rochester, Michigan.

The Dodge Sportsman Award recognizes a man, woman or organization who, in the spirit of entrepreneurial American sportsmen John, Horace and Danny Dodge, has demonstrated outstanding contributions to Michigan’s outdoor heritage, wildlife and habitat conservation and the promotion of hunting and fishing activities, ethics and education.

"I'm very humbled and grateful to be the recipient of this award,” said Stewart. “I thank the individuals associated with the Dodge Sportsman Award selection committee and representatives of the Meadow Brook Hall staff for honoring me with this prestigious professional award. I love my job and I feel privileged to work with so many fine people who have an interest in natural resources and helping others.”

Shannon O'Berski, director of external relations for Meadow Brook Estate, said Stewart was selected for the Dodge Sportsman Award because of his “inspired work in leading the conservation and management of upland game birds in Michigan, and for his work mentoring others in outdoor skills.” In addition to the body of work Stewart has achieved at the DNR, he also is co-chair of the Michigan Pheasant Restoration Initiative.

Meadow Brook Hall's Gourmet Wild Game Dinner is a major fundraiser that supports the preservation of Meadow Brook, the fourth-largest historic house museum in the United States, named a National Historic Landmark in 2012 by the Secretary of the Interior.

For more information on the award and Stewart's career, contact Holly Vaughn at 313-396-6863.