I've been watching the salmon restoration efforts in both Maine and Southern New England for about 20 years now and I've come to the conclusion that most efforts south of Maine are doomed to failure. My definition of success is the establishment of self sustaining, wild populations in tributaries of the Connecticut and Merrimac. The reason I think that restoration may not be possible is that return rates of smolts are too low and the amount of accessable habitat for spawning and rearing age 0-1 fry is too small. In Maine, the average return rate on smolts has been in the order of 2.5 - 3%; that is for every 1000 smolts that migrate out of a tributary 25 -30 will return as mature fish in 2 years. This is probably at the low end of what constitutes a viable population. The rates of smolt return so far in the Connecticut and Merrimac have been on the order of 0.25%. At that rate 1000 smolts come back as 2-3 fish. When one considers the amount of habitat required to produce 1000 7-
9 inch fish per year, it becomes apparent that most of these streams don't have enough remaining habitat to support a viable population unless return rates can be increased by 5-10 fold. As to what is causing the low return rates, they are in all likelyhood the result of downstream mortality due to dams with some additional mortality possible due to the presence of predators or poor water conditions not found in the gulf of Maine. IMHO a good bit of blame for the failure of this program lies in the political nature of its start. Federal dollars went into this and every state in New England wanted a piece of the pie. From a scientific perspective, it makes no sense to include headwater streams with 4 or 5 or more dams between them and the ocean for fry and smolt stocking when it has yet to be shown that restoration can succeed with only one or 2 dams in a tributary system. In the Connecticut system, with which I am most familiar, it makes no sense to stock tributaries in Vermont u
ntil it is shown that more southerly tribs, such as the Salmon river in CT, with only a single dam can sustain a viable population. The fact that the salmon river is the only stream in the whole CT watershed in which salmon reproduction has yet been documented would seem to bare out my point. Also, restoration efforts have included streams where the lack of suitable spawning habitat almost precludes the establishment of wild populations from the get go. For example, much effort has been put into salmon resoration in the Farmington river in CT, which has a single *problem dam* near its junction with the CT. Unfortunately, the vast majority of spawning habitat has been eliminated by impassable dams and pollution. All of these dams (3: one each on the Nepaug, West Branch Farmington and East Branch Farmington) are for water supply and hold back lakes of hundreds of acres each. For all intents and purposes they are gone forever. This leaves only 2 smallish tributaries (Salmon brook
and stillwater river/sandy brook) as possible spawning habitats. Smolts are stocked in the mainstem and the lower west branch, but trout reproduction in these areas is limited at best. What makes one believe that salmon can utilize this habitat more successfully? At best the Farmington can support a put-grow return fishery, but it is highly unlikely that a sustainable wild sustainable fishery (ie: reintroduction) will ever exist there. Ditto for most of the other CT tributaries. I don't mean to sound overly negative, but much of the salmon restoration efforts appear to be a waste of time and money. If I were King there would be a continuing restoration program on streams that have the fewest dams and most habitat and the rest of it would be discontinued until the most promising streams developed sustainable returns. In the meantime, maybe some money and effort could be put back into the development of the CT and MA searun brown trout fisheries (put/grow/take) that were discont
inued when the salmon restoration efforts were started. Better yet, where habitat still exists
some effort could be made to restore the native salter (sea run brook trout) populations like they are currently doing on Long Island.
Sorry for the long post...
Regards,
Eric Lund