Connetquot State Park's trout exhibit examines their role in the local ecosystem

In early fall, the hatchery at Connetquot River State Park Preserve teems with juvenile rainbow trout.

The young fish are among 50,000 rainbow and brook trout eggs hatched at the facility each year to stock waters for recreational fishers — a tradition that goes back more than 100 years, and one that park officials want to teach visitors about with a new exhibit that opened Saturday at a celebration of the New York State park system’s 100th anniversary.

The exhibit, which features details about trout life cycles and their role in the local ecosystem, was funded by a $41,000 Parks and Trails grant awarded in 2022. The park received the funds in 2023.

The display, called the Environmental Interpretive Center at the Historic Trout Hatchery, cost $42,000 to build. The difference was covered by a donation from Dr. Richard Steinberger, a board member of Friends of Connetquot River State Park Preserve.

Friends president Janet Soley applied for the Parks and Trails grant that funded the exhibit.

Although park staff sometimes offer special tours of the facility, which is the only hatchery run by the state park system, it “has always been closed to the public,” said park manager Jessica Anderson-Ruiz.

“But now,” she added, “through the funding and support of the Friends group and this grant, we’re able to create a space that we could invite the public in more often to get a good taste of what’s happening inside this building [and] how it impacts the park around us.”

Members of the South Side Sportsmen’s Club of Long Island built the hatchery in 1879, and rebuilt it in 1900 after a fire, according to the hatchery exhibit.

The facility shuttered in 2008 after fish in the hatchery tested positive for a virus called infectious pancreatic necrosis. It reopened in 2016 with a clean bill of health and updated water supply, "which is well water from a glacial aquifer, not from the river itself," to prevent disease spread, Anderson-Ruiz said.

“The purpose of the fish hatchery is to raise fish, or trout specifically, to then be released into the river, so for the sport of fishing, they have the opportunity to catch,” she said,.

The hatchery raises around 25,000 brook trout from eggs each year, the state fish and the only type of trout native to New York, said hatchery manager Matthew Caputo. The hatchery also raises around 25,000 rainbow trout every year from eggs shipped from Washington State.

Hatcheries like the one at Connetquot help sustain local fish populations, Caputo said, and recreational sports like fishing are “an important part of the economy.”

He also pointed out that money generated from freshwater fishing licenses, required for fishers over 16, goes back into conservation.

Hatchery operations are funded through Connetquot’s annual budget from New York State Parks, said Anderson-Ruiz. The cost, at around $50,000 per year, covers the purchase of fertilized eggs twice per year, food to feed the fish, and sending fish out for required disease testing.

The new exhibit at the hatchery will, hopefully, improve public access and knowledge about trout and the work done at the facility, park officials said.

Attendance at the state park preserve averages around 225,000 visitors annually, according to Anderson-Ruiz.

State parks on Long Island overall see nearly 30 million visitors per year, said regional director George Gorman, a number that has increased since the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We are stewards of the lands that we are entrusted by the public to manage,” Gorman said of the state park system, which marked its 100th anniversary this year. “We need to conserve. We need to make sure that we have places for fishing enthusiasts, for hunters.”

The centennial celebration at Connetquot on Saturday that marked the official opening of the hatchery exhibit is one of many held throughout the park system this year.

Attendees included Ed Kohler, president of fly fishing club the Long Island Flyrodders. Kohler has been fishing at Connetquot for 50 years and has never visited the hatchery himself, although it’s the reason park waters are home to some of the biggest fish he’s ever caught on Long Island.

He likes to visit the preserve around once a month — not just for the size of the fish, but because “the park itself is beautiful,” he said.

His ventures into the forest offer hours of “serenity,” bathed in wildlife. 

On a fishing trip, he might see ospreys snatching fish from the river, deer passing him to cross the stream, raccoons foraging just feet away, or muskrats playing in the water.

“What’s not a reason to go there?” Kohler said.

By Brianne Ledda

brianne.ledda@newsday.com@brianne_ledda

Brianne Ledda covers the Town of Islip for Newsday. She previously covered Southold and Greenport for The Suffolk Times and is a graduate of Stony Brook University.