{"id":5713,"date":"2020-09-10T22:27:23","date_gmt":"2020-09-11T02:27:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=5713"},"modified":"2020-09-10T22:30:23","modified_gmt":"2020-09-11T02:30:23","slug":"episode-115-invader-huge-coho-salmon-caught-by-andrew-skeoch-sept-5-2020-port-credit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/?p=5713","title":{"rendered":"EPISODE 115: INVADER? HUGE COHO SALMON CAUGHT BY ANDREW SKEOCH, SEPT. 5, 2020, PORT CREDIT"},"content":{"rendered":"

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EPISODE 115   INVADER CAUGHT!  HUGE COHO SALMON CAUGHT BY ANDREW SKEOCH, SEPT. 5, 2020, PORT CREDIT, ONTARIO
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<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
alan skeoch<\/div>\n
sept. 9, 2020<\/div>\n

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\u201cDad, just caught a big one  this morning\u2026.about a mile out in the lake.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cHoly Cow, what is it?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cBig Coho Salmon\u2026lots of them down deep\u2026These Coho\u2019s love dining on the little alewives.\u201d<\/div>\n

\u201cWhat are you going to do with it?\u201d<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cAlready done\u2026.I got the remains of my lure out of its mouth then put it back in the lake.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSo what kind of a fisherman are you?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cCatch and Release\u2026guess I would be called a sport fisherman.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhy do it?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cBecause  these big salmon\u2026the Cohos and the Chinooks\u2026they  put up a real  fight when  snagged\u2026takes<\/div>\n
a lot of work to get this Coho hanging from my index finger\u2026a lot of work.:<\/div>\n
\u201cI hear the Coho\u2019s are an invasive species\u2026not natural to the Great Lakes.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cTrue.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t they disrupt the natural balance of underwater  life.   What has happened to the giant lake Trout<\/div>\n
that were once the top predators?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSome are still around.  A breeding group are  still in a spot in Lake Superior\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cEver caught one?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cSure.  Not much fun though.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cFun?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cNo challenge catching a big Laker.  They just float up to the boat.  Often  dead by the time they are landed\u2026no point in<\/div>\n
catch and release.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cWhy don\u2019t they fight like your big  Coho.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cBladder problem.  They live in the deep  water\u2026200 to 300 feet down.  When caught and hauled up their bladders expand<\/div>\n
and pretty well knocks them out.  The Cohos on the other hand burp as they come up.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cBurp?\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cBladders adjust to shallower water.  So  they come up mad as  hell and ready for a fight.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cLooks ugly enough.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cThese big salmon are all muscle\u2026the giant Lake Trout have  a lot of fat.  Some old Lakers have been<\/div>\n
weighed at 200 pounds.   They can live for a hundred years.   These Cohos have a short life spent gorging<\/div>\n
on alewives.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cSeems a shame to let an invasive species  like that Coho loose in the great Lakes\u2026must have<\/div>\n
changed the whole ecology of the Great Lakes.   They must gobble  up all the small fish.”
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\u201cThey do\u2026and that is  why they are here\u2026to eat the alewives by the ton.\u201d<\/div>\n
\u201cDad, look up that guy Tanner\u2026a Yank from Michigan   He changed the Great Lakes\u2026totally.  He dropped  in these  Cohos and<\/div>\n
also Chinooks\u2026two kinds of salmon from the Pacific.  The  alewives were killing the Great Lakes  fishery.  By the time Tanner<\/div>\n
came  along  90% of the fish life in all the Great Lakes were alewives.\u201d<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhat is an alewife.?\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cAnother invasive species that thrived in our waters.  Small\u2026might be called a bait fish. Spend their lives eating fish eggs\u2026killing the natural fish that way.   Seemed they could <\/div>\n
not be stopped because our natural predators\u2026the big Lake Trout the lurked  deep down\u2026were being sucked to death by another<\/div>\n
invasive specie\u2026the Sea Lamprey\u2026.ugliest thing in the Great Lakes.  Sort of a snake with a head full of Velcro.   They feasted<\/div>\n
on our Lake Trout.  Swam up alongside  them and \u2018zap\u2019 they shoved that Needle toothed most into the Lakers and  sucked their<\/div>\n
blood until they weakened  and died   One lamprey could kill 40 pounds of Lakefish in a season.  With no predator fish the alewives<\/div>\n
multiplied into the millions\u2026billions.  So many that a few lost to Lampreys was insignificant..\u201d<\/div>\n

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\u201cHave you ever caught a Coho with a Lamprey attached?\u201d<\/div>\n

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\u201cOccasionally.  We are ordered to kill any Lamprey we catch.  Never release them. God, are they ugly.  Killers.\u201d<\/div>\n

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\u201cHow did the lampreys and alewives get into the Great Lakes in the first place.?\u201d<\/div>\n

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\u201cCanals.   We built some great canals.  The Erie Canal in New York State was a highway for the alewives from the 1840\u2019s.  Then<\/div>\n
the Welland  Canal and St. Lawrence Seaway became super highways for he lamprey.   We did it to oursleves.    We murdered<\/div>\n
the Great Lakes by overfising and by opening those  canals.<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201c\u2026Dad, why don\u2019t you look up that guy Tanner.  He saved the Great Lakes.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s  his first name?\u201d<\/div>\n

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\u201cI\u2019ve forgotten.  But I remember one thing he said just before he dumped the first Coho or  Chinook  Salmon into the Lake Michigan watershed.\u201d<\/div>\n

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\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
\u201cHe was flying over Lake Michigan and notice a huge white  thing floating on he surface.  He asked the pilot what it was. \u201cThose alewives,,,<\/div>\n
millions of them die when water temperature changes. They float.\u201d   Tanner asked the pilot to bank the plane and go lower for a better<\/div>\n
look. The  white patch was  seven miles long and half a mile wide.  Millions\u2026billions of dead alewives.\u201d  Tanner never forgot that sight.<\/div>\n
By the 1950\u2019s and 1960\u2019s the<\/div>\n
Great Lakes were packed with alewives.  Often there were so many dead alewives on some beaches that front end loaders and<\/div>\n
dump trucks had to be hired to scoop them up and bury them in pits.  Something had to be done and Tanner was the man that changed everything.  Look him<\/div>\n
up, Dad.\u201d<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n
I spent the months of studying the impact of invasive species on our Great Lakes. There are many fascinating stories about the changes in biomass in the<\/div>\n
Great Lakes.  Some stories are very disturbing.  No story is quite  as dramatic as the story of Howard Tanner.  Normally I would like to tell the story in my own<\/div>\n
words but the words of Lou Blouin, writer and public radio producer, are so good\u2026so dramatic\u2026so multi-faceted that I have quoted him below.<\/div>\n

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NOTE:  HOWARD TANNER BROUGHT ABOUT “ONE OF THE BIGGEST BIO-MANIPULATIONS THE PLANET HAS EVER SEEN.”<\/div>\n

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BELOW  IS THE FULL STORY OF  HOWARD  TANNER <\/div>\n
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Featured in the November 2015 issue of Traverse, Northern Michigan\u2019s Magazine<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Howard Tanner is not a man who likes to talk about himself. But there are moments when he can\u2019t help but beam with some degree of self-satisfaction. Like the time he was just coming ashore from fishing and a 10-year-old boy identified him simply as \u201cthe man who invented salmon.\u201d The latter isn\u2019t such a bad shorthand for what actually happened. Because the fish that many assume has always been here is only in the Great Lakes because Tanner said it should be.<\/p>\n

The clock hanging on the wall of Howard Tanner\u2019s dining room\u2014the one he insists every guest pay a visit\u2014is little more than a rectangular piece of wood, heavily lacquered, with thin gold hands. It has the look of something that was made in a trophy shop\u2014which is appropriate, given that it\u2019s really more of a plaque than a timepiece. Lean in closely, and you\u2019ll see it is an award from the Freshwater Fisheries Hall of Fame; a memento documenting the day, according to a small inscription, that Tanner was \u201ceternally enshrined\u201d in fishing history.<\/p>\n

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\u201cDoesn\u2019t it sound like I\u2019m already dead?\u201d Tanner, now in his early 90s, shouts from his chair in the living room.<\/p>\n

His morbid quip is clearly a well-worn joke\u2014an attempt, perhaps, to blunt pride with a little self-deprecating Midwestern modesty. Because, in truth, Howard Tanner has been \u201ceternally enshrined\u201d for good reason. Some have dubbed his work of the 1960s as nothing less than the largest and most successful biomanipulation project ever attempted.<\/p>\n

\"Howardmynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-768×1152.jpg<\/a> 768w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-682×1024.jpg<\/a> 682w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-400×600.jpg<\/a> 400w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-1140×1711.jpg<\/a> 1140w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-970×1455.jpg<\/a> 970w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-480×720.jpg<\/a> 480w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d.jpg<\/a> 1333w” data-src=”https:\/\/mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-200×300.jpg” data-sizes=”(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px” class=”wp-image-153146 size-medium lazyloaded” src=”https:\/\/mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-200×300.jpg” sizes=”(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px” srcset=”https:\/\/mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-200×300.jpg 200w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-768×1152.jpg<\/a> 768w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-682×1024.jpg<\/a> 682w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-400×600.jpg<\/a> 400w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-1140×1711.jpg<\/a> 1140w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-970×1455.jpg<\/a> 970w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d-480×720.jpg<\/a> 480w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1d.jpg<\/a> 1333w” style=”box-sizing: inherit; border: 0px; height: auto; max-width: 100%; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 400ms 0ms; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; width: auto;”><\/p>\n
Howard Tanner<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Meet Howard Tanner<\/span><\/h4>\n

Hear Tanner\u2019s own version of the story and he\u2019ll tell you he was simply in the right place at the right time. The Michigan native and fisheries biologist who grew up in Bellaire<\/a> had returned home after several years in Colorado to take the head job at the fisheries department at the Michigan Department of Conservation. In 1964, there were certainly more uplifting jobs he could have moved his young family across the country for.<\/p>\n

By mid-century, the Great Lakes had become, by many measures, an ecological disaster zone. Invasive species had devastated lake trout, the Great Lakes\u2019 native trophy fish, and overfishing was finishing off what was left. Pollution had grown so intense that environmental groups were collecting dead, oil-soaked ducks from the Detroit River and dumping them on the lawn of the State Capitol. Rotting alewives were washing up on Lake Michigan beaches in a layer described as \u201ca foot thick and 300 miles long.\u201d And the Department of Conservation\u2019s strategy for dealing with any of it, to the extent that there was a strategy, had been labeled a disaster. So when Tanner took the helm, he did so, he admits, aided by low expectations. In fact, as he remembers it, he was only given one directive: To \u201cdo something,\u201d and if he could, \u201cmake it spectacular.\u201d<\/p>\n

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As it turned out, Tanner was well-practiced in dealing with loose instructions. Back in Colorado, regulations were thinner and bureaucracy more flexible within the fisheries division. \u201cI wouldn\u2019t say it was the Wild West exactly, but there certainly was a Western style,\u201d Tanner remembers. As he talks, you can tell he has a certain degree of fondness for the time he accidentally got shot with a cyanide gun, or the winter he almost died in an avalanche. Official work, he says, often evolved into leisurely fishing trips where missions were accomplished with the aid of relaxed campfires and plenty of beer. Ecologically, his team played fast and loose with the rules as well, experimenting with all sorts of \u201ccrazy things\u201d\u2014for one, introducing non-native species into lakes and reservoirs. One of Tanner\u2019s team\u2019s most unusual and promising experiments in Colorado had been introducing Pacific salmon\u2014a saltwater fish\u2014into freshwater. Despite skepticism that a saltwater species could adapt to freshwater, the salmon thrived and the fishermen loved it.<\/p>\n

Now back in Michigan, faced with new challenges, Tanner began wondering if salmon could play a role in restoring some the Great Lakes\u2019 former glory. Void of a top predator fish, the lakes had become ecologically and economically unviable\u2014overrun by smaller, non-native fish like the alewife. Fish that the public actually wanted to catch were on the wane. If introduced, Tanner thought, the salmon could give the Great Lakes a much-needed new kingpin\u2014and give the people of Michigan one of the world\u2019s top trophy fish right on their doorsteps.<\/p>\n

To be clear, what Howard Tanner was now contemplating was nothing less than the intentional introduction of a non-native Pacific species to the largest freshwater system in the world. And when he worked up the nerve to start speaking publicly about his idea, people were quick to raise concerns. First and foremost, no fisheries biologist had ever attempted to manage water even close to this size. In Tanner\u2019s case, his master\u2019s degree program had put him in charge of a 27-acre lake; his doctoral program, six lakes\u2014the largest of which was six acres. Lake Michigan alone was 23 million acres. \u201cIt was like somebody who had gotten good at raising geraniums in flower pots was now being given a cattle ranch,\u201d Tanner says.<\/p>\n

There were also logistical questions. Some argued salmon would die in freshwater or simply head into the St. Lawrence River and out to the open ocean. Others pointed to the many failed attempts to introduce salmon to the Great Lakes dating back to the late 1800s. The plan also faced one giant, undeniable obstacle: coho salmon, the fish that Tanner had identified as the species of choice, simply couldn\u2019t be had. At the time, every single coho egg harvested from the hatcheries of Oregon and Washington were spoken for\u2014part of a grand attempt to re-establish salmon in the heavily dammed Columbia River.<\/p>\n

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Then came the phone call.<\/p>\n

Howard Tanner was sitting in his living room, having his usual pre-dinner cocktail. On the line was one of his old Western colleagues. He was calling to let Tanner know there was an anticipated surplus of coho eggs on the West Coast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was just like the chair fell from under me,\u201d Tanner remembers. \u201cThat night, I didn\u2019t sleep much. I just sat there most of the night, thinking, What if \u2026 What if?\u201d<\/p>\n

The following morning, he was in his office watching the clock tick. With a three-hour difference between Michigan and the coast, he had to wait until midday to confirm the rumors that coho were available. The hearsay turned out to be true. Still, to get some of the eggs, he and his contacts in Oregon would have to navigate a gauntlet of bureaucracy. On top of that, they were working with an immovable biological deadline: If the surplus coho eggs were going to be viable for hatching and release back in Michigan, the whole plan would have to get every bureaucratic stamp in no more than six weeks. But, in a scenario Tanner can characterize only with words like \u201cmiracle,\u201d the approvals came. Within a few weeks, one million coho salmon eggs were on a plane, bound for the Great Lakes. Tanner\u2019s spectacular experiment was now underway.<\/p>\n

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Everything happened so fast that Tanner didn\u2019t yet have money for things like fish food. And he didn\u2019t know exactly where he was going to raise the fish once they hatched. Michigan\u2019s hatchery system, which had been largely devoted to restoring lake trout, was 40 years out of date and in no shape to undertake a program of this size. He went to the legislature and asked for a million dollars\u2014half of which he finally won by promising the chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee that 150,000 of the salmon (and the promised economic boom) would land in the senator\u2019s district. Tanner and his team then embarked on a tour of the state\u2019s hatchery system, looking for just the right place to raise the fish. Eventually, the hatchery on the modest Platte River in Benzie County<\/a>was chosen as the spot where the salmon would start their lives\u2014and, theoretically, return to spawn\u2014if everything went according to plan.<\/p>\n

Tanner remembers the moment when the fish were finally ready to be \"Michiganmynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-768×1152.jpg<\/a> 768w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-683×1024.jpg<\/a> 683w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-400×600.jpg<\/a> 400w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-1140×1710.jpg<\/a> 1140w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-970×1455.jpg<\/a> 970w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-480×720.jpg<\/a> 480w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b.jpg<\/a> 1334w” data-src=”https:\/\/mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-200×300.jpg” data-sizes=”(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px” class=”alignright wp-image-153147 size-medium lazyloaded” src=”https:\/\/mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-200×300.jpg” sizes=”(max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px” srcset=”https:\/\/mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-200×300.jpg 200w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-768×1152.jpg<\/a> 768w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-683×1024.jpg<\/a> 683w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-400×600.jpg<\/a> 400w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-1140×1710.jpg<\/a> 1140w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-970×1455.jpg<\/a> 970w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b-480×720.jpg<\/a> 480w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1b.jpg<\/a> 1334w” style=”box-sizing: inherit; border-style: none; height: auto; max-width: 100%; float: right; margin: 12px 0px 24px 24px; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 400ms 0ms;”>released as one of the great moments of his career. It was April 2, 1966, and the now year-and-a-half-old coho were ready to enter the Platte River near Honor<\/a>, Michigan. He had a special wooden speaker\u2019s platform built for the event. Public officials offered words touting the benefits of the salmon program. The press took photos. Then, Arnell Engstrom, the Traverse City<\/a> house representative whose vote had been critical in funding the salmon program, picked up a golden bucket and dumped the first batch into the Lake Michigan watershed. Tanner got his turn later in the afternoon on Bear Creek, a tributary of the Manistee, at a site just below Tippy Dam. Swimming with the current, the four-inch \u201csmolts\u201d would find their way to the open water in less than two days.<\/p>\n

If everything went according to plan, the young coho would spend a year and a half in the open water before returning to the Platte River in the fall of 1967. And early indications suggested the fish would indeed find their way home. In the fall of 1966, the \u201cJack\u201d salmon\u2014a small class of precocious fish that spawn a year ahead of schedule\u2014started showing up in Platte Bay, many in a form that astonished Tanner\u2019s Western colleagues and foreshadowed a potentially colossal spawning run the following year. \u201cOn the coast, the Jack will maybe weigh a pound and a half or two pounds,\u201d Tanner says. \u201cSome of our fish were coming back at seven pounds. The guys from Oregon just shook their heads and said, \u2018You\u2019d better get ready. You\u2019d better get ready.\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n

Even today, what happened next still stands as the biggest \u201cbig fish\u201d story in Great Lakes history. In late August 1967, tens of thousands of returning salmon suddenly announced their presence\u2014this time without a formal speech. coho rushed into Platte Bay, and the fishermen followed\u2014largely learning of the spectacle by word of mouth. Tanner has aerial photos from that fall showing tiny Platte Bay jammed with 3,000-plus boats, many of them canoes and little aluminum dinghies not suitable for open water. The boats formed a near-solid mass; some fishermen joked you could almost walk from boat to boat and never get wet. And in between, the fish were so thick, they were porpoising out of the water.<\/p>\n

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Tiny coastal towns like Honor, Empire and Frankf<\/a>ort<\/a> suddenly found themselves overrun with tens of thousands of fishermen and wannabe fishermen. The tiny boat launches grew tails of cars and trailers that ran miles long. One man, Tanner remembers, even started a taxi service to ferry people back and forth. Another guy was selling hot dogs. Lures sold out, so people started renting lures. In September, Sports Illustrated even showed up to cover the event they dubbed a \u201cboom on Lake Michigan.\u201d<\/p>\n

People who had never caught any fish of any size like these were catching five, and their tiny little boats were just full of salmon. Nobody had to embellish the stories. It was madness.<\/p>\n

\"Michiganmynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-768×512.jpg<\/a> 768w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-1024×683.jpg<\/a> 1024w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-752×501.jpg<\/a> 752w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-1140×760.jpg<\/a> 1140w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-970×647.jpg<\/a> 970w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-480×320.jpg<\/a> 480w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1.jpg<\/a> 2000w” data-src=”https:\/\/mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-300×200.jpg” data-sizes=”(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px” class=”aligncenter wp-image-153149 lazyloaded” src=”https:\/\/mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-300×200.jpg” sizes=”(max-width: 700px) 100vw, 700px” srcset=”https:\/\/mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-300×200.jpg 300w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-768×512.jpg<\/a> 768w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-1024×683.jpg<\/a> 1024w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-752×501.jpg<\/a> 752w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-1140×760.jpg<\/a> 1140w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-970×647.jpg<\/a> 970w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1-480×320.jpg<\/a> 480w, mynorth.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/1115_TVM_feature1.jpg<\/a> 2000w” style=”box-sizing: inherit; border-style: none; height: auto; max-width: 100%; display: block; margin: 24px auto; opacity: 1; transition: opacity 400ms 0ms;”><\/p>\n

The impacts of the salmon were huge and immediate. The value of riparian property in the surrounding area doubled almost instantly. Hotels and businesses sprouted up in Michigan\u2019s new salmon country. Tiny Honor, Michigan, population 300, even christened itself the state\u2019s new \u201cCoho Capital.\u201d The joyful hysteria was only briefly interrupted by tragedy on September 23, when the crush of mostly inexperienced anglers ignored small-craft warnings and found themselves overrun by a violent Lake Michigan storm. One hundred fifty boats were swamped; seven people drowned. But it hardly blunted the public\u2019s appetite for salmon. Now, every coastal town\u2019s bait shop and city hall were lobbying for the fish to be planted in the local stream. And the state delivered, stocking millions more coho across the rest of the Great Lakes in the following years, and furiously expanding the antiquated hatchery system to give the people what they wanted.<\/p>\n

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Doubling down on its great salmon experiment, the state added an even bigger trophy to the mix of Great Lakes fish the following year. The Chinook salmon was a Pacific species two to three times bigger than the coho, was cheaper to produce, and had a diet that consisted almost exclusively of the hated alewife. Within a few years of the new super-salmon hitting the open water, reeling in a 30-pounder became common. Fishermen loved it. Sunbathers loved the fact that alewives weren\u2019t rotting on their beaches. And the fisheries department kept the big fish coming, flooding the Great Lakes with millions of coho and Chinook every year\u2014the state\u2019s economy, in turn, flooding with the windfalls of a world-class fishery that seemed to have been created overnight.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt almost gave us the impression that the system was unlimited,\u201d says Randy Claramunt, a fisheries research biologist with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources. \u201cThe more salmon we put in, the more salmon we got out. Literally, we went from zero stocking to almost eight million a year in the 1980s, and we still had record-high harvest levels.\u201d<\/p>\n

By the mid-1980s, there was no arguing that Tanner\u2019s original vision had indeed evolved into something worthy of the word \u201cspectacular.\u201d Just two decades after his coho fingerlings were released into the Platte River, the salmon had brought under control one of the area\u2019s worst invaders, alewives. The sport-fishing industry, previously non-existent, was now valued in the billions of dollars. And people came from all over the country to fish the Great Lakes.<\/p>\n

But the record catches and the new trickle-down salmon economy in which everyone seemed a winner weren\u2019t telling the whole story. Though no one knew it at the time, the Lake Michigan fishery, the crown jewel of the lakes, was beginning to strain. The system did indeed have limits. And without warning, the once-mighty Chinook, the adopted king of Michigan waters, all but vanished almost as quickly as it appeared.<\/p>\n

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In a plot twist worthy of the theater, it was the demise of the fish everybody hated that brought down the fish everybody loved. The alewife\u2014the invasive saltwater species that was best known for dying and rotting en masse on Michigan beaches\u2014had given the Chinook salmon what seemed like an endless food supply. In fact, when the salmon program was first conceived, it was never done so as an alewife control program; the small invaders were so prolific that the idea that their populations could be significantly impacted by a predator seemed like wishful thinking.<\/p>\n

In less than two decades, however, the Chinook began to chip away at the alewife\u2019s dominance. In fact, by the early 1980s, alewife biomass in the Great Lakes stood at less than 20 percent of historic highs\u2014largely because of salmon predation. With less to eat, the salmon being reeled in from the lakes started to get smaller and thinner. Then, in the mid-1980s, the already-stressed Chinook was overcome by an outbreak of a mysterious kidney disease, one that would later be linked to the high-density hatcheries unknowingly pushing out diseased fish to keep up with the public\u2019s demand for salmon. Though the less-fished and more-adaptable coho toughed it out, the mighty Chinook soon disappeared from Lake Michigan.<\/p>\n

More than a decade later, the story repeated itself in Lake Huron in an even more devastating fashion. Better rates of natural reproduction and heavy stocking led to a scenario in which the Chinook ate themselves out of an ecosystem. To make matters worse, new invasive species like the zebra and quagga mussels\u2014both of which filtered plankton out of the lake\u2014undermined the alewives\u2019 own food supply. Faced with pressure from both the bottom and top of the food chain, the alewife population collapsed in the early 2000s, the Chinook population following close behind. Stories of big fish harvested from Lake Huron were quickly replaced by those of gas stations, hotels and restaurants going belly-up. There were even stories about charter boat fishermen moving west to try to start over on the Lake Michigan side, where salmon populations had started to rebound.<\/p>\n

The salmon bust revealed new truths that had gradually become latent fundamentals of the salmon program. For one, if the state was going to maintain salmon as a top predator in the Great Lakes, it needed a more nuanced policy than raising as many fish as it could and dumping them into the water. It was also obvious now that the salmon economy had grown too big to fail: The experiment that Howard Tanner had started almost on a hunch had now evolved into a $7 billion economy and a vital tool for restoring balance to the largest freshwater system in the world. More importantly, though, the salmon program had inadvertently ushered in an era whereby the Great Lakes would now be a highly managed entity, and from which there was no turning back.<\/p>\n

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Long gone are the days where the only thing limiting the number of salmon the DNR puts in the Great Lakes is how many salmon the hatcheries can produce. Today\u2019s approach to managing salmon has evolved into a highly nuanced, high-tech venture. You can see it on the boat that fisheries biologist Randy Claramunt takes out on Lake Michigan every August, when he heads out to do a census of the lake. One of his favorite tools: A hydroacoustic survey unit that allows him to count prey fish like the alewife, and in turn, figure out how many salmon the lake can support.<\/p>\n

\u201cLess than 15 years ago, it took two months to survey the entire lake,\u201d Claramunt says. \u201cNow we survey the entire lake in less than 10 days. It\u2019s getting to the point where we can almost make annual changes to our salmon stocking rates based on how many prey fish are in the lake.\u201d<\/p>\n

One of Claramunt\u2019s newest research frontiers is getting a better handle on how much natural salmon reproduction is happening in the system. To do that, the fisheries division is now tagging every Chinook salmon that it stocks in the Great Lakes; when an angler catches a tagged fish, he or she turns in its head at their local research station. Knowing how many wild fish are in Lake Michigan lets the fisheries department know how many more hatchery-raised fish they can afford to add to the mix without pushing things out of balance.<\/p>\n

A strategy that involves so much less shooting in the dark is important to avoid periods of boom and bust like the Great Lakes have seen in the past. \u201cThe debate over salmon now is whether we can use them as a tool to control things like the alewife, or if they\u2019re just a bomb waiting to go off,\u201d Claramunt says. In particular, many biologists are now fearing the devastating collapse in Lake Huron could be soon be repeated in Lake Michigan. With some of the same biological forces now at work, many are surprised it hasn\u2019t happened already. Zebra and quagga mussels, which undermine the food chain that all fish species depend on, are both abundant in Lake Michigan. Just as in Lake Huron, their pressure on smaller prey fish like the alewife has a direct effect on the Chinook. Indeed, Claramunt\u2019s last two surveys of the lake, which revealed major declines in alewife reproduction, are cause for concern. \u201cThree consecutive failures of prey fish reproduction almost always equates into a predator crash, which is exactly what we are managing to avoid,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

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Some argue, though, it\u2019s not worth all the effort. Many would rather see the fisheries program reorient itself toward a focus on restoration of native species rather than deepening the lakes\u2019 dependence on an introduced species like the salmon. From their perspective, the salmon have done their job: bringing the alewife population under control, and even conveniently pressing their own self-destruct button. Indeed, since the Chinook collapse in Lake Huron, some native species seem to have rebounded, though biologists say this may have more to do with the lack of alewives, which preys on the eggs and juveniles of native species, than the lack of Chinook.<\/p>\n

\u201cSome people would rather see us try to bring the lake trout back,\u201d Randy Claramunt says. \u201cBut the question is, can a restored lake trout population control alewives? And before we have that debate, I wouldn\u2019t want to eliminate a fishery that is providing both an economic and ecological benefit in hopes that the lake trout can do the job. As long as we\u2019re going to see invasive species play a major role in shaping the ecosystem, we will have to have fish hatcheries and ways of manipulating the system to mitigate those impacts. And for the foreseeable future, salmon will likely be one of those tools.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard Tanner, for one, is happy the salmon will keep coming\u2014not just because it\u2019s his legacy, but also because he feels like it\u2019s good management. He still likes to debate such issues, and though long-retired, he still talks about the department\u2019s new ideas for the salmon program in the plural first person, as in \u201cwe.\u201d A lifelong fisherman, he still likes fishing for salmon. In fact, every summer, he still makes the pilgrimage to \u201cthe Big Lake\u201d in hopes of reeling in another big Pacific fish. Thanks to him, it\u2019s an adventure that\u2019s just a short drive away. So we say, thank you, Howard Tanner.<\/p>\n

Lou Blouin is a writer and public radio producer. He lives in Pittsburgh, where he covers environmental issues on public radio.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

EPISODE 115   INVADER CAUGHT!  HUGE COHO SALMON CAUGHT BY ANDREW SKEOCH, SEPT. 5, 2020, PORT CREDIT, ONTARIO alan skeoch sept. 9, 2020 \u201cDad, just caught a big one  this morning\u2026.about a mile out in the lake.\u201d \u201cHoly Cow, what is it?\u201d \u201cBig Coho Salmon\u2026lots of them down deep\u2026These Coho\u2019s love dining on the little […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5713"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5713\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alanskeoch.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}