On August 20th, members of the recreational fishing community once again joined federal agencies tasked with overseeing fisheries management for the summer gathering of Fisheries Community and Federal Agency Network, or Fish and Feds for short.
Led by the American Sportfishing Association, Fish and Feds is a networking and discussion group aimed at getting recreational anglers, conservation groups and federal agencies in the same room to discuss opportunities for improving access, habitat and promotion of our nation’s great fisheries.
The August meeting centered around fish passage and how the federal government is using Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) and Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding to remove instream barriers that prevent fish and other aquatic organisms from accessing critical habitat. By removing or remediating dams, culverts and road-stream crossings, game fish such as salmon and striped bass can access important spawning and rearing habitat and migrate freely to and from the ocean to complete their life cycle. Other fish such as trout can access cold water refugia in headwater streams during the warm summer months.
Passed in 2022, BIL included more than $2 billion in funding to various agencies to restore aquatic organism passage. Through this funding, 13 federal agencies joined together to form the Federal Interagency Fish Passage Task Force “to achieve a more holistic and collaborative approach to implementing fish passage activities under BIL and beyond.”
In addition to coordinating funding for restoration projects, providing technical support and identifying interagency goals, the Task Force also created an interactive map to track all the work completed with BIL funding.
Find a Fish Passage Project Near You
To date, almost 400 projects have received $530 million in funding to improve fish passage, and in turn, improve recreational fishing. The sportfishing industry and our partners thank the following agencies for joining us at this month’s meeting:
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
- NOAA Fisheries
- NOAA Office of National Marine Sanctuaries
- U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration
- U.S. Army Corps of Engineers
- National Park Service
- Bureau of Land Management
We also appreciate the many partner organizations that help make these gatherings a success:
- BoatUS Foundation
- Backcountry Hunters & Anglers
- Marine Retailers Association of the Americas (MRAA)
- National Wildlife Federation
- Association of Fish & Wildlife Agencies
- Trout Unlimited
- Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership
- National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA)
The inaugural Fish and Feds gathering happened in January of this year. The next meeting will take place this winter. Click the link below to sign up for updates on how you can help advocate for fish passage and conservation on a river near you.
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