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Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery welcomed two new employees to the hatchery. Lane Eubanks from the Chickahominy Indian Tribe in Virginia and Jonathan Oxendine from the Haliwa Saponi Indian Tribe in North Carolina.
Over the next year and a half, the hatchery will train Tribal citizens on fish culture and on freshwater mussel production, funded in part through a Tribal wildlife grant to the Upper Mattaponi Indian Tribe (UMIT). The grant will help the UMIT prepare for building a hatchery in the future to raise American shad, alewife and blueback herring, and possibly freshwater mussels.
Representatives from the UMIT, the Pamunkey Indian Tribe, and the Chickahominy Tribe were also welcomed to the hatchery on April 4th, along with 30 students and staff from Randolph Macon University, for a tour and robust question and answer session about the fish and mussel aquaculture programs at Harrison Lake. Additionally, Harrison Lake National Fish Hatchery and the Virginia Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office will be working closely with Tribes in Virginia to evaluate the status of migratory fishes and freshwater mussels in waters of interest to the Tribes, and to restore key habitats for these faunal groups.
