Good day all, and thank you for joining us once again for this update from the
Peter Gray Parr Project! Although our hatcheries have been empty for over a month now, we have still kept quite busy! We spent the whole month of November conducting redd counts throughout the East Machias watershed.
What is a
redd, you may ask? A redd is essentially a nest that a female salmon creates on the river bottom. Once the eggs have been deposited into the pit and fertilized, she then covers them with gravel. How do we count them? Two ways, we dress warm and throw on some chest waders and walk down the river, or we hop in a canoe and pole down the river, slowing down over the spawning shoals to see if we can spot some freshly disturbed river bottom. The pictured above show how much the redds can stand out to the naked eye!
Well, we have some great news to share with everyone, we have counted a total of
61 REDDS in the East Machias River Watershed! This is huge for our project!
In 2016 we had 12 redds, 2017 we had 4 redds and in 2018 we had 10 redds. The redds from this year have been spotted all throughout the watershed whether they be in a small tributary or in the "big water" of the mainstem. We saw them in parts of the watershed, where we've never seen redds before! We just finished our redd counts for this year, but we are already looking forward to next year's!
Besides our redd counts, we have also ventured down to Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery in East Orland, to help our friends at the United States Fish and Wildlife Service as they spawned their adult Atlantic salmon. We always enjoy this opportunity! Check out the photos!
The eggs need to develop for a month or two before we transport them to the Peter Gray Hatchery, but that'll be here before you know it!
