The Downeast Salmon Federation Finishes Fin Clipping Effort with Help from the Community.
After only three weeks, the Downeast Salmon Federation, with so much help from the local community, has completed marking all 150,000 juvenile Atlantic salmon for their on-going research project at the East Machias Aquatic Research Center’s Peter Gray Hatchery. This was a tremendous success and would not have been possible without the outpouring of support from community members, many local school groups, and local state salmon biologists. Over 350 local students got involved in the effort and accounted for over 50,000 marked fish! All juvenile salmon grown at the EMARC facility are marked with a fin clip prior to stocking to identify them as EMARC origin fish during follow up assessments.
These assessments include electrofishing surveys and spring smolt trapping surveys. Electrofishing surveys allow biologists to get an idea of the survival rate of the fish stocked into the East Machias River from EMARC and to check in on these young salmon while they are still in fresh water. Spring smolt trapping surveys allows biologists to determine the size of the population of salmon leaving the East Machias River on their way to the ocean as smolt, and because fish stocked from EMARC are marked, the number of smolt leaving the river that came from the Downeast Salmon Federation’s hatchery can be estimated. These now marked fish will be released throughout the East Machias River by the end of October. The Downeast Salmon Federation team would like to thank everyone who came out this year and helped fin clip! To learn more about the Downeast Salmon Federation and the East Machias Aquatic Research Center, please visit our website at www.mainesalmonrivers.org, or “like” us on Facebook.
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