Best of 2012: 9) Gone fishin'

Atlantic salmon in circular
pool at White River National
Fish Hatchery.
Credit: Ann Froschauer/USFWS

We're bringing in the new year with a look back at our milestones for 2012. Check back each day for featured events and activities from across the Northeast!

Ever had an aquarium? You probably had no more than a handful of fish to care for. Imagine if you were raising millions and millions of fish, including a variety of species with different needs. Let's throw some freshwater mussels in there, too.

You're starting to look like a national fish hatchery, where biologists blend layers upon layers of science and technique to successfully raise and release fish and mussels that will support our waters and fishing pastime and industry.

Best of 2012 8) Controlling invasive species

We're bringing in the new year with a look back at our milestones for 2012. Check back each day for featured events and activities from across the Northeast! 

Invasive species pose some serious threats. They can displace native fish and wildlife and change native habitats, harming fish, wildlife and plant resources. Invasive species can also pose a risk to human health. In 2012, the Service worked to reduce the impacts that invasive species are having across the Northeast Region. A few projects that we worked on this year:

The first collection of hydrilla verticillata
in Tonowanda Creek.  Credit: USFWS

In September, staff at the Lower Great Lakes Fish and Wildlife Conservation Office discovered hydrilla verticillata, a highly invasive aquatic plant, in the New York State Canal System in Tonawanda, N.Y. Hydrilla crowds out waterweeds and other essential plants, slows water flow and can clog lakes and rivers, enough to even eliminate swimming or boating. The pest is confirmed within one mile of the Niagara River, and thus the Great Lakes. The extent of its possible impacts to the Great Lakes remains unknown, but monitoring elsewhere suggests the plant can become quite a nuisance in waters up to 25 or 30 feet deep. The Service’s Lower Great Lakes office is leading a rapid assessment team of state and federal agencies to determine the actual reach of the plant in the Tonawanda Creek and Niagara River corridor, which will help establish potential response options.  

Best of 2012: 7) Connecting people with nature

We're bringing in the new year with a look back at our milestones for 2012. Check back each day for featured events and activities from across the Northeast!

Volunteer at Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge in
New Jersey releases a mourning dove after a bird banding
program at the refuge. Credit: Larry West

Released mourning doves, ensured that sea turtle hatchlings made it to the ocean safely, and monitored bat species. Those are just a few of the activities Service volunteers and youth employees had the chance to do while working at national wildlife refuges, field offices, and other Service facilities in 2012. As a natural resource agency, we strive to connect people with nature in meaningful ways that inspire and empower them to take action and make positive changes in natural resource conservation.

Best of 2012: 6) Safeguarding wildlife without borders

We're bringing in the new year with a look back at our milestones for 2012. Check back each day for featured events and activities from across the Northeast!

While the bird that sits on a rhino's back and cleans it of ticks and other insects is called the oxpecker, it's sometimes referred to as the “rhino’s guard.”

Black rhino male and calf in Mkhuze, South Africa.
The black rhino, as well as the Sumatran, Javan and Indian rhinos,
is protected as endangered under the Endangered Species Act and listed from critically
endangered to vulnerable on the IUCN Red List. The only other species of rhino surviving
in the wild, the (southern and northern) white rhino, is listed on the Red List,
but only the northern white rhino is protected under the ESA.
Credit: Karl Stromayer/USFWS.

With poaching on the rise, the rhino needs more than these birds to protect it. And in February 2012, a major national U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service undercover law enforcement effort answered the call.