Florida Bass Conservation Center wins national award
News Release
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Media contact: Bob Wattendorf, 850-488-0520
(Back to Commission meeting
news)
The American Fisheries Society, the nation's
leading organization of professional fisheries scientists,
presented a 2009 Wallop-Breaux Outstanding Project of the Year
award to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission
(FWC) on Thursday at the Commission meeting in Lake Mary, near
Orlando. The award recognized the Florida Bass Conservation Center
in the Sport Fishery Development and Management Facilities
category.
"The Wallop-Breaux program is an essential part of
our country's effort to ensure quality recreational fishing
opportunities for anglers," said Robert Curry, president of the AFS
Fisheries Administrators Section.
Many anglers may know the Wallop-Breaux program as
either Federal Aid in Sport Fish Restoration or Dingell-Johnson. By
either name, it is the program that collects excise taxes and
motorboat fuel taxes nationally and then allocates the funds to the
states for sport fish restoration activities. How much Florida
receives back is based on the size of the state and the number of
anglers who paid for a Florida fishing license.
The Florida Bass Conservation Center is a hatchery
and research facility in the Withlacoochee State Forest, near
Webster, that is dedicated to ensuring the conservation of
Florida's four native species of black bass: Florida largemouth
bass, shoal bass, Suwannee bass and spotted bass. Fish raised at
this facility are essential to maintaining populations throughout
the state that are being challenged by habitat loss.
The FBCC was dedicated in February 2007 and was
paid for in part by federal Wallop-Breaux and State Wildlife Grants
money, together with state matching funds, and a Rural Economic
Development Initiative grant. The site includes an interpretive
area and public fishing pond and is open to the public during
normal business hours.
For more information about the center and
Wallop-Breaux, go to MyFWC.com/Fishing.
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