A Sheboygan Conservation Organization has been honored for its efforts to restore the fishery in the Onion River. On Friday, Lakeshore Trout Unlimited was named the 2023 “Adopt a Fish or Wildlife Area Group of the Year” by the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources for adopting the Onion River Fishery Area in Plymouth, Lyndon and Mitchell Townships. The other 2023 winner was the Friends of Brillion Nature Center in Calumet County as the Wildlife Area Friends of the Year.
The restoration of the Onion River was a collaboration of the Lakeshore Chapter along with Windway Corporation, the River Alliance of Wisconsin, the Sheboygan County Conservation Association, the Sheboygan River Basin Partnerships and the Michels Corporation, along with private citizens and the DNR. The collaborative effort that began in the early 1990s has now restored the Onion River to “Class-1 Trout Stream” status, which requires high-quality waters that sustain the trout fishery naturally without requiring the stocking of hatchery trout.
The DNR’s Tim Lizotte said that the four groups honored this year contributed a collective 17,400 hours and $423,371 of funding donated or raised over the last two years to support the state’s wild places.
Year 2022 honorees were also announced on Friday. Those two groups were the Groundswell Conservancy of Dane County as Adopt a Fish or Wildlife Area Group of the Year, and the Friends of Horicon Marsh in Dodge County as the Friends Group of the Year.
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