New York’s final push to restore Atlantic salmon to the Saranac River is now underway, as the Department of Environmental Conservation begins the last year of its five-year pen-rearing experiment on Lake Champlain.
Partnering with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Trout Unlimited’s Lake Champlain Chapter, SUNY Plattsburgh, and Plattsburgh Boat Basin and Oasis Marina, DEC is deploying six net pens in the river estuary to study whether pen-rearing boosts salmon survival and return rates. The goal is to improve aquatic ecosystems and expand future fishing opportunities.
From April 4 to May 1, about 26,000 Sebago strain salmon smolts will be split into two groups. One will be reared in the pens to imprint on the river, while the other will be released directly, allowing researchers to compare return rates of adult fish in the years ahead.
DEC Region 5 Director Joe Zalewski said the agency and its partners are focused on “the best management actions to improve the freshwater Atlantic salmon population” as they evaluate data from this final year of the experimental phase.
Atlantic salmon are known for their ability to return to their birth river to spawn. That “homing” behavior begins during a narrow imprinting window when they shift from freshwater to lake life. Pen-rearing exploits that window by holding pre-smolt salmon near the Saranac for three weeks. Once released, they migrate into the lake, grow for two to three years, then return to spawn.
Parental Based Tagging, which uses genetic samples to trace a fish’s origin, will help researchers determine whether offspring found in the river were produced by wild or stocked fish—and from which stocking method.
Volunteers from Trout Unlimited feed the salmon daily during the pen-rearing period and monitor their condition. The smolts are raised at the Dwight D. Eisenhower National Fish Hatchery and transported by DEC’s Adirondack Hatchery.
Support from the Sport Fish Restoration program—funded by the Dingell-Johnson Act—helps keep the project running. The program backs state efforts nationwide to protect fish populations and expand public access to waterways.
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