TOPIC:

Great Lakes Salmon Initiative

It has been an extremely long but eventful year since the GLSI formed. We have experienced growing pains and stressful situations with state agencies. We have also come full circle to develop a fantastic working relationship with the Lake Michigan Basin Coordinator of the MDNR Jay Wesley. I will do 3 posts this week talking about Coho production/movement, Zonal Management, and Chinook Production.
What is the MDNR doing about our Chinook production for 2018?? The current proposal is to increase plants BACK to 2013-2016 numbers of 560,000 Chinook!!! The proposal has been put in front of the L.MI Citizens Advisory Council and Jay Wesley gave us permission to post this info to you. The MDNR is listening to anglers all over the lake about baitfish, they are seeing the size of the fish, they are recognizing the increased water levels and nutrient levels and the changing balance of the ecosystem. The GLSI pointed out that the crash did not occur in 2013 to the Chinook following off the chart catch rates in 2012 but the crash occurred in 2009 and 2010 to natal production in the rivers during the drought years. This is leading to discussions about different modeling criteria of river flows and temps and the relationship to natural production and how biologists can use other criteria to estimate natural production, not having to wait 2 years to collect data from 1yr old harvested fish. The GLSI has also committed to defending the MDNR if a combination of factors like ecological reasons, fish size plummets, bait fish numbers collapse, natal production sky rockets to decrease the size of the plants to maintain a balance in the ecosystem and maintain our fishery long term.
How can the MDNR increase production.
#1 Recognizing angler input of bait fish numbers and possibly flawed assessment data--just increase the production. Going back to 560,000 will have virtually no impact on the ecosystem after looking at combined factors like natural reproduction numbers.
#2 Move some Swan River fish to L Michigan to maintain the predator prey ratio without increasing the number of mouths in the system.
#3 Cut production of other species to adjust for the increased Chinook.
The GLSI stands behind option #1 from the stand point our initial strategy was to maintain 560,000 plants. We also proposed cutting other species because we felt that since only cuts were being made to Chinook and the results were not providing the corresponding results that these cuts alone were not effective. The other apex predator that the majority of the public agreed was making a tremendous impact on alewives is Lake Trout. There have been and will continue to be cuts in LT plants---it is all about a balance!! What about Brown Trout, what is the effectiveness of this fishery---cost per Brown on a catch return basis is over a $100 per fish. We will talk more about this in the Zonal Management post.
We need to pay particular attention to the Citizen Advisors and what and how they vote on the Chinook plant proposals. This is their job, they need to research and understand what is going on economically, ecologically and make sound voting decisions.