Passport to Texas

Passport to Texas from Texas Parks and Wildlife and the Sport Fish Restoration Program

Freshwater fish hatcheries have supplemented Texas’ natural fish populations for decades.

Hatcheries have been employed by Texas Parks and Wildlife or its predecessor agencies for more than seventy-five years. Eighty years.

Todd Engeling is chief of inland hatcheries.

The first hatchery was constructed in Texas—that we have a record of—in about 1925. At one time, Texas had up to 17 different facilities, but today we operate five.

Including the Jasper Hatchery, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps in 1932. The facility occupies 227 acres of land, and has 63 ponds covering approximately 65 surface acres.

At that time, it was dug with minimal machinery, with teams of mules digging ponds and laying in clay pipes and things like that. It has received some renovation over the years, but the last significant renovation was done in 1945.

More than seventy years old, the Jasper Hatchery has seen better days. So a new hatchery is being built to replace it.

This facility will be comparable in size in terms of acreage, but it will incorporate new technologies. And most of that will be just in construction technologies, durable construction technologies, that will allow us to operate this facility for fifty plus years, and to meet our needs into the future.

The new East Texas Hatchery—that’s tomorrow.

That’s our show…with support from the Sport Fish Restoration program… providing funding for the operations and management of the Texas’ state fish hatcheries. For Texas Parks and Wildlife…I’m Cecilia Nasti.

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