My friends, so good to catch up with you again. As the Irish Poet William Butler Yeats once said: "
There are no strangers here; Only friends you haven't yet met."
This
parr
rearing season is flying along and our fish are developing into the "little athletes" they were destined to be. Here we are sitting at the end of September, ready to start clipping adipose fins on Monday...already October 1st!
Don't forget that e
ach year we try to have some
clipping
events
in the evenings.
Ladies' night
is Tuesday October 2nd starting at 6 pm.
Gentlemen's night
will be Wednesday October 3rd at 6 pm. If you can make it we'd love to see you there. If those times don't work for you and you'd like to see about helping to clip some other time during the week please email me at zach@mainesalmonrivers.org and we can discuss logistics.
September is always a fun month because we go out and
electrofish
many of the different streams and sections of river the East Machias River in partnership with the Maine Dept. of Marine Resources. Electrofishing uses a pulse of electricity to stun fish in the water. While slightly stunned the fish are netted. We do this each year to collect broodstock for future year's egg supplies and to assess how the juvenile population of salmon are doing out there in the river! I will share the detailed results of
electrofishing
in a later update once the numbers are crunched, but needless to say there were a good number of salmon around.
Another
DSF
employee, Brett, did a great job overseeing a big habitat improvement project on Beaverdam Stream. Beaverdam Stream is one of the most important tributaries of the East Machias River and there was a road with two undersized culverts disrupting river flow and fish movement. As you can see in the pictures, taking out that road and culverts made a huge difference for that habitat and will benefit the thousands of "little athletes" that live and pass through that area. We can't wait to see what mother nature does carving out her new section of free flowing Beaverdam Stream.
With October on the horizon that also means so is stocking. If all goes to plan all the parr from the
Peter Gray Hatchery
will be stocked by the end of October. Stocking the fish out to be free in the wild is an amazing feeling. English writer John Ruskin puts it this way: "
No human being, however great, or powerful, was ever so free as a fish."
In other news with the help of few awesome volunteers we were able to put our tanks in the East Machias hatchery expansion. Thank you Nick, Colby, and Quinn.
If you are new to receiving these updates and would like to catch up on some you have missed, please visit our website
here
. Also if you like the work we are doing, please considering
donating
towards the continuation of the
Peter Gray Parr Project
.
