Salmon Crash Looming?

Salmon populations in Lake Michigan may be on the verge of collapse, according to an article by Eric Sharp in yesterday's Free Press. It's happened to Lake Huron salmon already, so I suppose it was only a matter of time before their bretheren in Lake Michigan went the same way.

I'm not terribly upset by this. As I've said before, I'm not a huge fan of salmon fishing. But population crash or no, the salmon aren't going to go away entirely. And this does raise the possibility of significant changes (for the better, IMO), in how the fishery gets managed.

[W]hen the Lake Michigan [fisheries] committee makes a decision next month, Michigan likely will cut chinook plants by more than 25%, and the other states will make smaller reductions..

It's a fair question whether even those are needed.

Lake Michigan gets an annual plant of 4.3 million chinooks -- 2.3 million in Michigan, 1.5 million in Wisconsin, 300,000 in Illinois and 250,000 in Indiana. But half of the chinooks in the lake aren't hatchery fish. They're produced naturally in Michigan rivers like the Pere Marquette, Manistee and Muskegon. In Lake Huron, natural reproduction accounts for 80% of the fish, nearly all of them from Ontario rivers.

An Illinois angler at a public hearing on this issue suggested that Michigan stop salmon plants entirely. "Michigan would still have lots of salmon because it gets so much natural reproduction," he reasoned, "and it wouldn't hurt the rest of us who need stocked fish."

Not a bad idea, I think. The state would save a bunch of money, fish populations would come under control faster, and the fishery would be healthier, at less risk of hatchery-borne diseases. River conservation (and enforcement of snagging laws) might become an even higher priority for the state.

These ups and downs in populations are a natural process by which species adapt to environmental conditions. It may be an opportune moment for fisheries managers and fishermen to do a little adapting too.