FWC Blackwater Hatchery celebrates 80 years of sustaining Florida marine life

In the 1930s, the Blackwater Hatchery helped Florida families put food on the table.

Today, it helps sustain and protect Florida's fishing industry and numerous species of vulnerable marine life.

Friday marks the 80th year of operation for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission’s Blackwater Hatchery, a facility that has tens of millions of juvenile fish to stock freshwater lakes and rivers across the Florida Panhandle.

"Through the years, the hatchery has helped, especially here in the Panhandle, maintain a lot of sport fish populations in our lakes and rivers," said Bob DeMauro, hatchery manager and biological administrator for FWC. "We went through periods where there was a lot of pollution in rivers and a lot of things that were a detriment to fish populations. We've been able to help maintain them and actually, in a lot of cases, improve them from what they were."

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The hatchery, which covers just over 15 acres in the Blackwater River State Forest, produces and stocks 600,000 to 1 million fingerling and sub-adult freshwater fish annually in Florida public water bodies. Species produced include largemouth bass, white bass, black crappie, bluegill, redear sunfish, channel catfish and threadfin shad.

The only remaining Gulf striped bass populations found in Northwest Florida coastal rivers today are a result of fish produced and stocked by the Blackwater Hatchery.

"They no longer successfully reproduce in the wild because of habitat loss," DeMauro said. "So we're able to maintain the populations through our stocking program, otherwise the populations will basically would just disappear."

DeMauro said the hatchery is also testing ways to help sustain the shoal bass, a riverine species of black bass that in Florida is only found in the Chipola River near Marianna.

"A couple years ago when Hurricane Michael came through and actually did a lot of damage in the water basin over there, it did have a negative impact on the shoal bass population," DeMauro said.

He said the hatchery had been doing trials to figure out ways to encourage the species to spawn in hatchery conditions, and after some success, it is looking to help the shoal bass make a comeback.

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In addition to its conservation work, the hatchery is an educational space where students and civic groups come to learn about the local ecology. Additionally, the hatchery has long been an economic driver in the area.

Original construction of the hatchery began in the late 1930s as part of President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal. The voluntary public work relief program provided manual labor jobs to support families during the Great Depression and helped conserve and develop natural resources on government lands.

Completed in 1940, the hatchery grew and expanded over the years, adding ponds and programs and ultimately hitting a milestone eight decades in operation. The facility is one of two FWC hatcheries in the state, the other being the Florida Bass Conservation Center at Richloam State Fish Hatchery.

DeMauro said the 80-year anniversary is an important milestone for the hatchery and the community.

"I don't think there are too many things out there at a state level that have been working for 80 years and are still going," he said.

Kevin Robinson can be reached at krobinson4@pnj.com or 850-435-8527.