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Great Lakes Salmon Initiative 3/4/21

You may have seen the news the Michigan Department of Natural Resources will increase chinook stocking by planting 225,000 additional kings in 2021 at St Joseph and Grand Haven. This is great news, however, what many of the mainstream news outlets failed to include is that the added kings are replacing the cancellation of annual steelhead stocking last fall and in spring 2021. Steelhead were not stocked last fall and are not being stocked this spring because no steelhead eggs were taken in April 2020 due to COVID-19 restrictions put in place by Governor Whitmer.

When the egg take in spring 2020 was cancelled, the GLSI immediately went into action asking the MDNR to plant more kings to offset the cancellation of steelhead stocking which includes fingerlings in fall 2020 and one year old steelhead in spring of this year. We appreciate the MDNR moved quickly on this issue. There was not much publicity last year, but 77,000 extra kings were stocked in Grand Haven last spring to offset no fall fingerling steelhead plants in fall of 2020. Kings are being stocked based on equivalencies. Since kings will consume more alewives per fish than steelhead, 1 king will be planted for every 2.4 steelhead not planted. It is great we are getting more kings, but we won’t have any steelhead stocking this spring. Steelhead eggs will be harvested this spring so the steelhead program will get back to normal in the future.

Once it was decided that additional kings would be planted, the GLSI put forth a stocking proposal to stock these fish at locations that had cuts in king stocking in the past. A key factor influencing this decision is the ongoing negotiations for a new consent decree with the Tribal Nations. Because of this, the MDNR made the decision to not stock these fish in waters covered by the Treaty of 1836 until negotiations are finalized and a new consent decree is agreed upon. While we are disappointed, we respect this decision because the outcome of these negotiations will have a huge impact on our fishery.

We do not know what will happen with king stocking in 2022 when normal steelhead stocking is resumed. If the forage base and predator prey ratios are positive, the GLSI will be advocating for increased king stocking again next year in conjunction with the normal steelhead stocking. We will also work to have more diverse king stocking locations in 2022. We are confident this is the start of a positive trend and we should see improved catch rates for chinook salmon in the coming years