Today is World Fish Migration Day, a “one day global-local event to create awareness on the importance of open rivers and migratory fish.”
Fish passage and riparian habitat connectivity are important, long-standing issues for Maine Audubon. Our Stream Smart program focuses on helping towns and cities install new culverts at stream crossings which allow fish and other animals to pass through easily (and which also accommodate increasingly violent storms without washing out roads — protecting people and saving taxpayer dollars, too).
And for years, our Brook Trout Survey project has sent volunteer anglers out to remote ponds and streams to identify populations of wild Brook Trout — an iconic species for which Maine is the last true stronghold — so that we can protect them.
World Fish Migration Day is also a great opportunity to update you on our “Fish Friends” program, and how the Atlantic Salmon we’re growing in our Discovery Room are coming along. As you’ll recall from the previous update, Fish Friends is an educational program in which schools–and Maine Audubon–receive Atlantic Salmon eggs from local hatcheries in January and raise them until they are ready to be released into the wild in the spring (usually sometime in May).
Well, we’re pleased to report great progress. The salmon have progressed from the egg stage to being small alevin (newly hatched salmon, still attached to the egg sac), and are becoming fry, which is when they swim on their own.
Sometime next month, we’ll get word on a release date when we’ll be letting these little guys go back into their natural habitat. We’ll be sure to keep you posted as we know more. In the meantime, happy World Fish Migration Day!
