According to Community Biological Services Director Mike Donofrio, results from the most recent inspection - the second of three scheduled health inspections - is proof that healthy lake trout do exist in Lake Superior and that their offspring can be raised successfully at the hatchery.
Tribal staff have been nurturing three strains of lake trout since fall 1997 when the eggs were collected and fertilized at three Lake Superior reefs (Klondike Reef, north of Grand Marais, Mich.; Traverse Reef in Keweenaw Bay, Mich.; and Gull Shoal in the Apostle Islands, Wisc.). The fingerlings, now six inches long, will continue growing at about one-half inch each month. If the fish remain healthy, they will be transferred as 10-inch fish to a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service hatchery in June 1999.
These young fish will become the brood stock for the next generation of lake trout, explained Iron River National Fish Hatchery Manager Dale Bast. Their offspring will be stocked back into parts of the Great Lakes where wild fish arent reproducing in sufficient numbers. Along with sea lamprey control and habitat restoration, the periodic stocking of lake trout is critical toward restoring wild lake trout populations in Lakes Superior, Huron, and Michigan.
The fish health inspection was performed by Becky Lasee, a biologist with the Services Fish Health Center in LaCrosse, Wisc. The inspection involved collecting 60 fish from each strain and testing each for bacterial and viral diseases. The fingerlings appeared very healthy and in good physical condition, Lasee said. The fingerlings next health inspection will be in April 1999.
The fish rearing project is part of a two-year cooperative agreement between the Keweenaw Bay Community and the Service. The agreement calls for the Community to isolate and raise three strains of lake trout for use as future broodstock broodstock
The reproductively mature adults in a population that breed (or spawn) and produce more individuals (offspring or progeny).
Learn more about broodstock . In exchange, the Service will provide yearling lake and brook trout from its hatcheries to Keweenaw Bay and the Communitys reservation waters.
As fulfillment for the first year of our agreement, the Service planted 106,000 eight-inch yearling lake trout into Keweenaw Bay in April, Donofrio explained. The Services Genoa Hatchery also planted 8,000 seven- to eight-inch brook trout into streams and inland lakes chosen by the Community for recreational fisheries. The same quantity and species of trout will be planted at similar locations in 1999.
Members of the media and public can arrange to view hatchery operations by contacting Mike Donofrio at 906/524-5757.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is the principal Federal agency responsible for conserving, protecting and enhancing fish, wildlife and plants and their habitats for the continuing benefit of the American people. The Service manages the 93-million-acre National Wildlife Refuge System which encompasses more than 530 national wildlife refuges, thousands of small wetlands and other special management areas. It also operates 66 national fish hatcheries, 64 fishery resource offices and 78 ecological services field stations. The agency enforces Federal wildlife laws, administers the Endangered Species Act, manages migratory bird populations, restores nationally significant fisheries, conserves and restores wildlife habitat such as wetlands, and helps foreign governments with their conservation efforts. It also oversees the Federal Aid program that distributes hundreds of millions of dollars in excise taxes on fishing and hunting equipment to state fish and wildlife agencies. For further information about the programs and activities of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in the Great Lakes-Big Rivers Region, please visit our home page at: http://midwest.fws.gov
