New AGFC deputy director helps Batten down the leadership hatches
Aug. 3, 2022
LITTLE ROCK – Ben Batten belies the upper Midwest background that directed him on the path of outdoors and conservation work some 18 years ago. Rather, even with less of a Southern twang than most of his fellow Arkansas Game and Fish Commission employees possess, one still might mistake him for a native Arkansan in the way he seems to know every nook and cranny of this state, every fish in its waters, or the best spots to find deer, ducks and other “critters,” as he calls them.
AGFC to host open-house forums for bass angler input
July 27, 2022
LITTLE ROCK – Anglers interested in improving Arkansas’s bass fishing are invited to provide input on the state’s latest Reservoir Black Bass Management Plan at a series of open-house events the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission will hold in August and September. Eleven public forums will be held in locations throughout Arkansas to ensure anglers and other stakeholders from every corner of the state have an opportunity to review the current status of fisheries management, ask questions and provide input on the future of bass management in The Natural State.
Without access to trees, AGFC fisheries biologists build their own at Lake Hamilton for habitat
June 15, 2022
HOT SPRINGS – The sinking of trees cut from a lake’s nearby shoreline has become a popular Arkansas Game and Fish Commission method for boosting a fishery and helping the anglers using it, but some bodies of water like Lake Hamilton don’t offer the luxury of such handy habitat tools.
Olive takes helm of Arkansas fisheries
June 8, 2022
LITTLE ROCK — Jason Olive of El Dorado has been chosen to lead the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s efforts in fisheries management, hatchery production and aquatic conservation as chief of the agency’s Fisheries Division. Olive replaces former Fisheries Chief Ben Batten, who was promoted to AGFC deputy director at the May 19 Commission meeting in Little Rock.
Invasive carp removal teams begin work on White River
Oct. 20, 2021
HAZEN — With only a few days of training, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s newly formed invasive carp removal team has removed roughly 320 pounds of invasive carp from the White River in its first day of netting.
AGFC lowers booms on giant salvinia spread at Lake Columbia and beyond
Sept. 29, 2021
MAGNOLIA – Giant salvinia, a highly invasive aquatic plant that was first detected in Lake Columbia in December 2019, has the full attention of Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s Fisheries Division. AGFC biologists have partnered with multiple agencies in attempts to slow its potential spread not only in this lake, but in other nearby waterways.
AGFC provides $769,000 to Arkansas schools for conservation education
Sept. 16, 2021
LITTLE ROCK — Commissioners with the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission passed a minute order at today’s meeting to transfer $769,564 to the Arkansas Division of Rural Services to offer grants for conservation education efforts throughout Arkansas. The money was collected during the last year from fines for wildlife and fishing regulations violations.