A Positive Thing - In the World of Atlantic Salmon

There are some positive things happening in the world of Atlantic salmon.  One of them is the streamside project Paul Christman, a Fisheries Biologist with the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission heads up.  A co-worker of Paul’s, Dan McCaw, stopped in last fall and told me of a project he was going to be working on.  They would be hatching out Atlantic Salmon eggs, streamside, in old refrigerators.  He was talking about cleaning the refrigerators, taking the compressors out, piping them up to use stream water and putting eyed eggs in to hatch.  Good luck, I though.

Well, last week Dan came back.  He invited me on one of their regular check and clean the filter trips and today I saw their hatching effort, and it seems to be working.  It was inspiring – I thought here are two guys who are onto something. 

    As you can see they have simply piped water into and out of two refrigerators – simple at first glance anyway.  Inside you find a filter system, overflow pipes, baffles for directing current through the eggs, hiding places for those that hatch out and a collection tank.   This thing could work.  They have eggs that are starting to hatch. 

If you look at the close up picture of the eggs in a small crate you might be able to make out a little guy swimming free just below the center and a little to the left. If memory serves me there are around 40,000 eggs in these two refrigerators and they have six out there. To little, to late, one might think but after listening to Paul you begin to see he and the people he works with are building the foundation for a much bigger program. A program that an organization, or even private individuals could take part in. What Paul wants out of this phase of the project is some hard data to take with him when he has to explain funding requests and when recruiting help from outside groups and individuals willing to help.  The fish and the returns will come later. 

The data he is gathering will include survival counts, not just from the hatch they are going through now but from hard stream data collected over two years of electro-fishing and gathering growth information.  Recruiting is another thing he is working on; recruiting through education. 

 Between the two of them Paul and Dan are assembling a photo documentary of the whole project and they want to take it “public” by taking to any organization willing to listen to them.  They are confident, and rightly so, I think, that if this project is a success people will organize on a grass roots level and repeat this project in many streams and rivers.   One interesting side note is that Paul feels this type of project will work for other species like Brown or Brook Trout – actually better he said because in the egg stage trout eggs seem to be a little heartier.  

Anyway, back to this project - here’s a view of another test hatch environment they have set up.  This system uses what looks like rough indoor/outdoor carpet and is something they borrowed from the poultry industry.  They just lay down a mat of this stuff, spread eggs over it, and place some rocks to support the next layer and then spread some more eggs.  You can see the eggs laying on the lower layer if you look close. 

So if you would like to go out and see one of these sites, learn how you or your organization might help or just want to know more about the project contact Paul at:
Paul Christman
270 Lyons Road
Sidney, ME 04330
(207) 547-5326

One last note. I asked Paul if his group's efforts were successful would that mean an end to stocking of Brown Trout or Rainbow trout in the Kennebec River watershed.  His answer, paraphrased slightly, “I don’t have any plans to request any changes.”  He went on to explain that someone else, an outside organization or other interested party might but that he didn’t plan to. 

 In other words – anything can happen.  That led to another topic and that was the closing of any waters containing an endangered species to all fishing to prevent incidental catch of the endangered species on a Federal level.  I know the State of Maine closed a section of the Penobscot River to protect Atlantic Salmon but I don’t think this has ever been done by the Federal Goverment. 

This is something I ask often and so asked it of him.  Both he and I have heard rumors of waters being closed to prevent incidental catch of an endangered species by the Federal Government. To date, whenever I've challenged the person making the claim they are unable to come up with an example.  Has anyone heard of this happening?  If you have post it on the forum please. 

Whatever happens it was good to get out today and see such a worthwhile project in progress.  And, by the way, did I tell you these guys were out maintaining this system in February?  How’s that for dedicated?