A past president and current life member of the Bluewater Anglers Hatchery has been recognized with a prestigious provincial conservation award.
The Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters (OFAH) presented Jake van Rooyen with this year's Gord Blake Memorial Conservation Award during a ceremony Tuesday in Point Edward.
Currently serving as hatchery manager, van Rooyen got involved in 2000 around the time when the hatchery was struggling financially to stay afloat.
Bluewater Anglers Hatchery Point Edward Aug. 2020 (BlackburnNews.com photo by Dave Dentinger)
"The easy way out was to shut it down. Well, my comment at that time was 'this is too good a thing to let it go, and if we let it go, it will never come back.' And being a person who likes to catch the big silver fish, I wanted to see it survive."
The 79-year-old van Rooyen said it's been able to survive with a lot of support from the community and the people that work at the hatchery. Around 25 to 30 people, made up of seven teams, currently run the hatchery -- van Rooyen said if it weren't for the volunteers, the big fish in the area would just peter out.
He added that hopefully, the COVID-19 pandemic will end soon to allow the hatchery to get back to some level of normality.
"But right now we're just preparing to go get out salmon eggs. So the work never stops, but it's also very rewarding."
The hatchery was thinned down when the virus hit, but van Rooyen said they still have 75,000 fish left to release and are now hoping for a successful egg-take to get up to full production.
A Dow Chemical worker for some 30 years, van Rooyen called volunteering with the hatchery "the best job I never had."
He said there have been lots of rewarding moments over his 20 years.
Fish at Bluewater Anglers Hatchery Point Edward Aug. 2020 (BlackburnNews.com photo by Dave Dentinger)
"When we run our kids day program, just the smiles. And I remember one tour we had an elderly lady in a wheelchair -- when we were feeding fish in the pond, she said 'this reminds me of being with my dad.' You know those moments are what makes volunteering all worthwhile."
van Rooyen was also inducted into the Sarnia Sports Hall of Fame and presented with a Builder Award in 2012.
OFAH Zone J Chair Brian Moore said van Rooyen's dedication to the hatchery and conservation for about 15 years, made him a natural fit for the award.
“We nominated Jake for the Gord Blake Award after he received the 2019 OFAH Zone J Outstanding Achievement Award for his outstanding efforts towards stewardship, conservation and the promotion of angling and/or hunting in southwestern Ontario.”
Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters is the leading non-profit fishing, hunting and conservation-based organization in Ontario with around 100,000 members, subscribers and supporters.