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This was a
collaborative project between their agencies. Their goal : to determine
habitat features that influence juvenile
Atlantic Salmon abundance. And secondarily to use genetic
analysis to determine relative movement of these young salmon within our
river. The river
was strung shore to shore with nets. Dan was using the electric wand to
temporarily stun the creatures so they would be easy to collect. The other
three were using large
John
explained “ We're basically using genetics as a "mark". We know the
genetics of all male and female salmon that were spawned at Craig Brook
National Fish Hatchery (in East
Orland, Me) in 2004, and we know
which female was fertilized with which male. The offspring of each mating
were only stocked into a single river section. When we collected an age 0+
parr, we clipped a small section of
caudal fin to take back to the lab. Genetic analysis will then tell us who
the parents of each parr were and we will then know where it was
originally stocked in the spring of 2005. We will be following this cohort
(fish from the 2004 spawn) as they mature through |
Working
the river that sunny day were John Sweka and Meredith Barton of the US
Fish and Wildlife Service and Dan and Eric from the Maine Atlantic Salmon
Commission.
nets
to quickly capture the dazed fish and transfer them to buckets for evaluation. They found crayfish and eels among the fish.
the 
rotary
screw traps below Head Tide dam. By the end of the study we hope to have a
better idea of what habitat features result in the greatest abundance of
parr, how much parr move from their original stocking location as fry, and
which areas of the river produce the greatest number of smolts.”