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The Rest of the Fish Story
As I mentioned, one of my goldfish has already died. My son told me that he didn’t put goldfish in his little backyard pond at $10 a pop, but used little feeder fish, or mosquito-eaters. So where does one find one of these? I went to the local fish hatchery to ask. Maybe they would even give me, or sell me, one? I’ve heard folks mention “The Hatchery” and I know a man from church who works there. It’s on West Queen, straight up the road from East Queen 1.9 miles, 4 minutes away. Surprising, isn’t it, that curious me hasn’t been there before? So off I went.
This isn’t a small fish hatchery as I had imagined it. It’s a National Fish Hatchery operated by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service. It’s 63 acres and is one of the oldest, established in 1898. Fish that are raised here are released in public waters in the Southeast. These are fish that need restoration, threatened or endangered fish populations. NFH provides support for depleted recreational fish populations and restores interjurisdictional fish populations. (Interjurisdictional means fish that move across local, state, or national boundaries.) Edenton produces more than 200,000 large striped bass for interjurisdictional restoration each year. These fish are tagged before release and have been caught from Cape Hatteras to New England, to Tennessee. The NFH also responds to disasters, natural and man-made that decimate fish populations.
The American shad is important on the food chain as well as for gamefish. In 1950s more than 5,000 metric tons were landed. In 2005, near zero. Edenton is restoring this fish for the Neuse and Roanoke Rivers. Lake sturgeon was returned to NC rivers for the first time in over seventy years by Edenton NFH in 2015. Bluejack herring is being restored to tributaries of the Chowan River. Our tax dollars at work!
In addition to acres of rearing ponds, the site also has a raised boardwalk through a natural wetland, and has a 700-gallon aquarium and three smaller ones. Open to the public year-round, the tanks exhibit the aquatic species living in Eastern North Carolina.
I didn’t get the little feeder fish for my water garden, but I sure learned a lot. And, I discovered a fun field trip with my visiting granddaughter this week. She’s going to adopt my lonely goldfish, and she knows where to buy the mosquito eaters. So, you might say this saga began and ended with a goldfish.