The muscogee creek nation MCN is developing its fisheries department in order to properly manage the waters within their reservation

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service awarded the Muscogee Creek Nation a $199,785 Project Grant under the Tribal Wildlife Grants (CFDA 15.639) program to develop the tribe's fisheries department and conduct baseline studies on the waters and fish within their reservation. The objective is to properly manage the tribal waters, identify pollutant issues, and better understand and manage the use of natural resources. This will promote healthy fisheries, clean water, and groundwater recharge. The tribe will use electrofishing equipment to study the various water ecosystems on their reservation and use the information to make better-informed management decisions to support healthy fisheries. The grant has an award date of December 15, 2024 and a completion date of December 15, 2026.

The objective of this project is to conduct baseline studies on the waters and fish in the tribally managed wildlife access areas waas and to cooperate with other tribes and agencies to gain a more comprehensive view of the large systems that we comanage. By properly sampling the waters within our reservation we hope to identify pollutant issues and also better understand and manage how we use the resources on our waas and agricultural lands. This will not only promote healthy fisheries and clean water for wildlife and cattle but will also help to better recharge the groundwater system with cleaner water that is tapped into by many of our residents for drinking water. IT will also allow US to better monitor our waters to target high possibility areas of algal blooms to implement prevention techniques. Using the electrofishing equipment suited best to the system, we can focus our efforts on the multiple different water ecosystems that are located in our reservation. Using the information we gain from this we can make betterinformed management decisions to promote healthy fisheries on both waas and on the reservation in general