Once again, the Governor of the jolly old yo-ho-ho State of Connecticut has decided that a good way to save money would be to close our hatcheries. Never mind all that stuff about Connecticut and the Farmington River being a destination for anglers all over the northeast, or those bothersome guides and small businesses that would go under without a viable fishery, and never mind all the pesky retail sales and business entity taxes — who has time to count all that up, anyway?.
(The author of this post now gives out a long sigh, and searches for a word that best describes Governor Malloy’s thinking. Ah. “Obtuse.” Yes, that’s it.)
So, here’s how you can help. Sign this petition.
Thanks.
Fred here is in favor of keeping our hatcheries. But Fred can’t sign the petition. Help a brother out, will you?
currentseams 
Thx for the information. I signed, commented and forwarded to 7 others to inform them. Good to note that their are many people coming from NYS whose revenue is brought to CT that would be unaware of the budgetary cut and profoundly upset with the removal of the hatcheries.
The short-sightedness of this is just mind-blowing.
Yeah this is just getting ridiculous. Every year! When will Malloy understand that we want the hatcheries to stay? If they went away there would be a lot of pissed off fisherman in these parts!
In CT, do fish and wildlife funds go into the general fund? In MA, they do not. Gov Romney several years back tried to do that, but it was thankfully repealed and MDFW sustained it’s own funding via license’s, permits, Pitman Robertson etc.. I can not figure out how the Gov Malloy down there could even ponder this.
Regardless, Steve, your point is spot on – short sighted beyond belief.
There may be a contingent approach to this if there is a closure. The state may turn to private growers to supply trout to state waters at lower costs. A man I know in Litchfield County raises trout and has the facility to raise high volume trout for almost half the cost. State hatcheries are burdened with budgeting, unions, ect…
I’ll give him a call tomorrow to pick his brain on the concept.
To me, privatization raises more questions than it answers. For example, what then happens to the DEEP’s wildly successful Farmington River Survivor Strain program?