Still an upstream battle
By STEVE CARTWRIGHT
Staff Writer Kennebec Journal & Morning Sentinel Thursday, May 03, 2007

SOUTH CHINA -- Fish biologist Paul Christman was busy stocking Branch Pond on Wednesday with 88,000 tiny Atlantic salmon.

The non-feeding fry, or alevin, are just a half-inch in length, and even the experts have no way to predict how many will survive. But Christman, based in Sidney with the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission, said the fish are not making a dramatic comeback. "They've declined to dismal numbers, but at least they're holding steady," he said.

"I'm holding my breath."

Biologists believe no more than 10 adult fish return on their own to the Sheepscot River, and that means about five females to lay eggs. The natural cycle of spawning hangs by a thread -- and for now, no fishing of Atlantic salmon is permitted anywhere in Maine. An experimental season was tried last year on the Penobscot River and could be repeated.

The commission, partnered with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, is doing its best to restore the native salmon run on the Sheepscot, each spring stocking it with 200,000 fish from the Craig Brook hatchery in Orland. But the goal is to restore natural spawning, and not to prop up the population by stocking. For now, stocking is imperative, Christman said.

"We stock as much of the habitat as we possibly can," he said, adding that "things seem to be remaining quite steady. I can't say it's getting better and I can say it's getting worse." On Tuesday, biologists put alevin into the Sheepscot River at the Route 126 bridge in North Whitefield.

Christman said one of the remarkable traits in Atlantic salmon is their ability to return to their fresh water homes after swimming as far as Greenland and the Arctic Circle. This ability has allowed salmon from the Sheepscot to develop identifiable genetic traits that differentiate them from, for example, Penobscot River salmon.

"Only Sheepscot fish go back into the Sheepscot," said Christman.

By stocking the river, "We're keeping the pool of genetic material as wide as possible," he said. Without that diversity, a disease could decimate the species.

Atlantic salmon are "holding their own," said Melissa Laser, a salmon commission researcher who looks at species restoration in terms of the whole ecosystem. "They're up from their lowest point in the early 1990s."

Laser, who on Saturday will receive her doctorate in environmental studies from Antioch New England Graduate School, said there are positive signs of a salmon comeback, but no "silver bullet" for making that happen. "There is a lot of cumulative impact," she said, involving both the fresh and salt water phases of a salmon's life.

Branch Pond, which borders South China and Palermo, is at the headwaters of the Sheepscot River's West Branch. It flows into the main river and wends it way past dams and bridges and farms and villages to the sea.

What happens to Atlantic salmon in the ocean remains somewhat mysterious, but these anadromous fish still return to 23 different Maine rivers, even though on eight rivers including the Sheepscot, wild salmon remain on the federal endangered species list, established seven years ago after a hard-fought campaign by conservationists.

Dams, agricultural runoff into rivers, climate change and other forms of pollution in fresh and salt water affect salmon habitat. Christman said he noticed new clearing for house lots near Branch Pond, and that too has an impact.

At Head Tide on the Sheepscot, scientists are studying smolt heading downstream with traps, and this spring a fisheries biologist from Alaska is part of a project to electronically monitor fish through sonar imagery, funded by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

"It's not just salmon. It's really about the ecology of the river. We need to look at the bigger picture, and try to correct 200 years of wrongs," he said.

In 1980, a record-setting 28-pound salmon was reportedly hooked in the Sheepscot River. The fisherman, Howard Clifford, didn't reveal where he caught the fish, but those who knew said it had to be the Sheepscot.

Steve Cartwright -- 623-3811, Ext. 435

scartwright@centralmaine.com


Reader comments

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Rodney Cole of Beverly Hills, FL
May 3, 2007 10:01 AM
What effect will global warming have on the whole idea of salmon in Maine rivers? Is there a critical temperature that may be reached, or even has been? The resurging bluefish population shows that waters are warmer...we catch blues here in Florida. Since watching a beautiful salmon caught on the Kenduskeag stream in Bangor (which ran behind the house I owned there) I have found these to be beautiful and fascinating fish. I hate to think of them joining polar bears and other cold weather species in disappearing.report abuse
M. Smith of Richmond, ME
May 3, 2007 6:51 AM
What happens to the salmon?

How about commercial fishermen who don't report their catches? ie: foreign offshore vessels.

And what about striped bass? With as many as we have in the primary rivers maybe they have acquired a taste for salmon smolt? The resurgence of striped bass has coincided with the disappearance of Atlantic salmon.

For several years fish stocked in some Maine rivers decided that they would return to rivers and fjords in Northern Europe where "unfortunately" the Maine Atlantic Salmon Strain is not covered under the endangered species classification.

Maybe we should allow Fishermen to angle for salmon once more in the traditional fly fishing method with catch & release so that we could have a few more sets of eyeballs on the river to watch for poachers who are unaware of the endangered species classification.
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