Tagged: department of wildlife and fisheries

A dead young dolphin washed ashore in an isolated area along the Mississippi River bank at Baton Rouge, state Wildlife and Fisheries personnel say.

Fisheries division biologist Mandy Tumlin says that in seven years with the department, she's never heard of a dolphin getting so far upriver. She says it might have done so by drafting along the bow of a ship headed upriver or by swimming up during Hurricane Isaac.

State wildlife and fisheries officials have extended the East Zone wild alligator harvest season through Oct. 4.

Robert Barham, secretary of the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, approved the extension Tuesday.

The scheduled opening of the East Zone season was delayed from Aug. 29 until Sept. 1 due to the approach of Tropical Storm Isaac, which reached hurricane strength before landfall. Resulting flooding and displacement of residents prompted the extension.

The state fisheries department is hosting a free fishing rodeo to teach people how to catch the Rio Grande cichlid, an invasive species of fish.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries is hosting the rodeo on Sept. 29 in City Park in New Orleans.

The cichlid fish out-compete native sport fish for habitat and bedding areas. The fish are from northeast Mexico and southern Texas. They were first reported in Louisiana in 1996 in Lake Pontchartrain and since then have spread throughout the New Orleans area.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says 14 young whooping cranes are expected to arrive soon in southwest Louisiana.

That will double the number in a flock being reintroduced near the area where the state's last wild flock once lived.

Twenty-six whoopers have been brought to Louisiana, but predators and disease killed nearly half of them.

Biologists say deaths are expected, since the birds must learn to live in the wild. But teenage hunters killed two. The department is working to teach people why the birds need protection.

Elm Hall, a state wildlife refuge about 5 miles west of Napoleonville in Assumption Parish, opens again after it was closed because of Hurricane Isaac.

The Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries says the refuge was reopened to the public on Wednesday.

Elm Hall is a 2,839-acre area that is accessible only by boat. The refuge sits on the northeast corner of Lake Verret.

Meanwhile Elmer's Island, a public beach facing the Gulf of Mexico in Jefferson Parish, remains closed after Isaac's surge exposed buried tar mats.