January 2012 OutdoorIllinois / 11

How anglers support the Sport FishRestoration Program.

Investingin IllinoisAnglingStory By Ashley P. SprattPhotos by Tim Edison, IllinoisNatural History Survey

Since 1950, it’s been theperfect reason to buy evenmore fishing gear:Whenever an Illinois anglerbuys a lure or rod and reel

at a local outdoors retailer, he orshe has directly invested in projectsthat help support fish and wildliferesources in our state.

“Directly and indirectly, anglers pro-vide almost 100 percent of the fundingfor fisheries activities within the Depart-ment of Natural Resources includinghatchery and stocking programs, sportfish habitat restoration, and surveys and

“The program is based on the NorthAmerican Model for Wildlife Conserva-tion—the user pays, the user benefits andthe fish are sustained,” Hodgson said.

The WSFR Program has generatedmore than $12.9 billion in federal fund-ing since 1939 for state fish and wildlifeagencies across the U.S. including morethan $274 million for the Illinois DNR.In 2012, this user-pay, user-benefitprogram will celebrate conservation

Over the past 75 years, Illinois sports-

men and women have contributed to

the Wildlife and Sport Fish Restoration

Act, bringing to the state more than

$274 million for conservation efforts.

research,” said Jim Hodgson, chief ofthe Wildlife and Sport Fish RestorationProgram for the U.S. Fish and WildlifeService’s Midwest Region.

The federal program, which is fund-ed through a small tax on all fishinggear, was created in 1950 as the FederalAid in Sport Fish Restoration Act (oftenreferred to as the Dingell-Johnson Act).It does for sport fishing what the 1936Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Actdoes for wildlife.

For anglers, the benefits run deep.The sale of state fishing licensesserves as base funding for state fish-eries management and conservationactivities; however, the Sport FishRestoration Program generates addi-tional funding for fisheries research,propagation and education.

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successes over three quarters of acentury, 75 years since the program’soriginal inception in 1939.

According to the 2006 NationalSurvey of Fishing Hunting and WildlifeAssociated Recreation, more than777,000 anglers, both resident andnon-resident, fish Illinois’ freshwaterrivers and streams each year and spendmore than $776 million on fishing-related expenditures. The programprovides a major contribution to theIllinois economy, and a major returnon investment for the Illinois angler.

In 2011, nearly $7.2 million wasapportioned to the state of Illinois forSport Fish Restoration projects.Fisheries research, development andstocking of fisheries, and operation andmaintenance of facilities such as angleraccess and fish hatcheries are theprimary areas of investment by statenatural resource agencies for SportFish Restoration funds.

How are those “fishing-tax”revenues spent? Here’s an example:Fish populations in portions of theIllinois, Mississippi, Ohio and Wabashrivers are under close surveillance byIllinois’ natural resource managers inan effort to analyze past and presentimpacts—natural and man-made—to fish populations in Illinois waters.

Popular target species for today’sMidwestern angler, such as largemouthbass, walleye and even catfish, havebeen surveyed for more than half acentury by the Illinois Natural HistorySurvey and Department of NaturalResources, thanks to these user-generated funds. And, with the help ofthat federal funding, survey efforts haveexpanded to cover all four of Illinois’major rivers.

William Starrett, a former director ofthe INHS Forbes Biological Station atHavana, began in 1957 what wouldbecome one of the longest-runningriverine fish community surveys in thecountry. Starrett’s Long-Term IllinoisRiver Fish Population program docu-mented changes in fish populations inthe Illinois River for 94 fish species andsix commonly occurring hybrids. Withthe support of the Sport Fish Restora-tion Program funding, the Illinois DNRhas expanded this long-term monitor-

ing effort in the past two years toinclude sampling sites along Illinois’other major rivers including the Ohio,Wabash and portions of the Mississippi.

John Chick, aquatic ecologist withthe INHS National Great RiversResearch and Education Center,explained the purpose of the surveyexpansion: “We are now able to trackpopulations of fishes that are of majorvalue to the recreational fishery in allfour of Illinois’ major rivers.”

In the late 1980s, the U.S. GeologicalSurvey and U.S. Army Corps of Engineerssupported a separate, but similar long-term data-collection program to monitorfish and water quality from five reachesof the upper Mississippi River system andone reach of the Illinois River. Coupledwith the recently expanded data-collec-tion program, natural resource managersin Illinois now have the most current andreliable fisheries data to assist withmanagement decisions regarding Illinois’riverine habitats.

“The state of Illinois recognized theneed for better information on therecreational and commercial fisheriesof its large rivers and saw the opportu-nity to combine the information fromthe two data collection projects,” saidJohn Epifanio, INHS fish biologist.

Fishing Illinois’ waters is big business,

with annual angling-related revenues

topping an estimated $776 million

annually.

Illinois’ long-term riverine fish

community monitoring efforts were

expanded 2 years ago to include sam-

pling locations along the Ohio, Wabash

and portions of the Mississippi rivers.

12 / OutdoorIllinois January 2012

January 2012 OutdoorIllinois / 13

“We divide rivers up into series ofreaches designated by locks and dams,or between major tributaries,” he said.“Each reach runs between 25-30 milesin length.”

Four to six sites are randomlyselected in each reach three timesbetween mid-June and October for atotal of 12 sampling locations in eachreach in a given year.

The long-term data provides naturalresources managers the opportunity totrack changes in the watershed, whetherthose changes are associated with imple-mentation of environmental legislationsuch as the Clean Water Act, invasivespecies such as Asian carp, or transporta-tion changes with the construction anduse of new locks and dams.

Chick explained the data from theLong Term Illinois River Fish Popula-tion program have been able to showa dramatic impact of the 1972 CleanWater Act to the fish community in theIllinois River. The new information col-lected on fish populations in portionsof the Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio andWabash rivers will be very valuable forassessing the expansion of invasivespecies such as bighead and silver carp,and their effects on native fishes.

“The current crisis impacting Illinoiswaters are the bighead and silver carp,”Epifanio said. “From a recreational fish-ing standpoint, they are a big threatbecause they feed at the lower end of thetrophic level, meaning they eat micro-scopic plants and animals, which is theexact forage base used by larval and juve-nile stages of important recreational fish-es, such as walleye, catfish and bass.”

The expansion of fish-population

monitoring in Illinois signals thatnatural resource managers are increas-ing awareness of the challenges tomaintaining Illinois’ ecosystems.

Chick also pointed out the multipleuses for Illinois’ rivers: “We also haveto keep in mind that these are workingrivers. They are used for navigation,transportation and commerce inaddition to recreational use. We haveto juggle management of the resourceunder these existing conditions.”

Just as the importance of Illinois’boundary rivers continues to grow,more scientific information is neededabout Illinois’ fisheries to allow conser-vation partners, both state and federal,to manage and protect these fisheriesand aquatic environments. This isexactly why the Sport Fish RestorationProgram, and the funding it generatesfor statewide fisheries management andresearch in Illinois, is so critical to thefuture of Illinois angling opportunities.

Why should the Illinois angler beinterested in this (and similar) long-termfish population-monitoring programs?First, whether or not they are aware,Illinois anglers are major investors inthis long-term fisheries research. Sec-ondly, the data collected allows naturalresource managers to analyze impacts,both man-made and natural, to the veryfish communities they angle, meaningbetter fishing in the long run.

The Sport Fish Restoration Program,along with its wildlife model, theFederal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act,generates funding for conservation andwildlife management activities for statenatural resource agencies through anexcise tax on hunting, shooting, fishingand boating sport equipment.

The sale of state fishing licenses servesas base funding for state fisheries manage-ment and conservation activities; howev-er, the Sport Fish Restoration Programgenerates additional funding for fisheriesresearch, propagation and education.

“Think about what we’ve been able toaccomplish with Sport Fish Restorationfunds—it’s truly amazing,” Epifanio said.“This funding source for fisheriesmanagement and research, as well as thepartnership between anglers, the fishingequipment industry, states and the fedshelps us get to our bottom line and thatis balancing the needs of resource userstoday with those of the users tomorrow.”

For more information about theconservation successes of the Wildlifeand Sport Fish Restoration Program,visit www.wsfr75.com or www.fws.gov/midwest/wsfr.

Ashley P. Spratt is a public affairs specialistwith the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

By investing in long-term fisheries

research through the Sport Fish

Restoration Program, anglers contribute

to efforts to improve fishing in Illinois.

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