Salmon effort seeks to restore important fishery
The Saco Salmon Restoration Alliance and Hatchery will deploy a “cutting-edge” method in its effort to restore salmon runs in the Saco River.
The method utilizes a hydraulic planter that creates a hole in the streambed gravel, into which eggs are planted and covered, allowing the salmon to hatch and grow in their natural habitat, the Journal Tribune reported.
Past efforts to restore the salmon by growing them in the hatchery and releasing them into the river did not produce the desired results, partly because the fish weren’t used to their natural habitat and were easy pickings for predators, the group’s president, Rick LaRiviere, told the paper.
According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, at one time hundreds of thousands of Atlantic salmon migrated from the oceans of Greenland to their natal rivers in New England. Today, they can be seen only occasionally in the wild, depleted by historical overfishing, pollution, dams and poor marine survival. The state now relies on hatcheries to provide enough young for the species to survive.
According to its website, the nonprofit alliance began in 1983 with a small egg incubation and fry stocking program on the banks of the Saco River in the town of Bar Mills. That facility closed in 1997 when the members and volunteers constructed a recirculating hatchery overlooking the Saco River estuary on Marblehead Lane in Biddeford. The hatchery remains operational December through April each year. The organization’s other achievements include negotiating fish passage systems and passage improvements and rearing and stocking over 10 million juvenile Atlantic salmon in the watershed.
The group began using the egg-planting method last year and, so far, results have exceeded expectations, LaRiviere told the paper.
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