March 28, 2024
BANGOR DAILY NEWS (BANGOR, MAINE

Study says salmon runs declining in Narraguagus River

CHERRYFIELD — The preliminary results of a study of Atlantic-salmon habitat in the Narraguagus River suggest that the annual salmon runs are smaller than they were during the late 1970s and early 1980s, according to a fisheries biologist with the Atlantic Sea Run Salmon Commission.

Kenneth F. Beland, a Northfield resident, is the commission’s senior researcher and serves as the leader of the habitat study. The study will be financed by a grant of $217,000 from the National Marine Fisheries Service and is expected to take five years to complete.

According to Edward T. Baum of Hermon, the commission’s chief biologist, Atlantic-salmon runs have declined in recent years both in Maine and in eastern Canada. Seven out of 10 salmon originating in Down East rivers are taken in the high seas fishing areas near Greenland, according to Baum.

Peter Wass of Cherryfield, one of five members of the commission, said the idea of studying the salmon runs in the Down East rivers arose during a commission meeting more than two years ago. The original plan was to trap and count salmon on one or more of the rivers and to study the spawning habitat.

“The Narraguagus was the best and easiest place to do it,” Wass said.

The study will combine an annual census of salmon returning to the river with a study of the quality and extent of the salmon habitat in the river’s watershed. In addition, juvenile salmon will be tested for the presence in their tissues of pesticides, herbicides and fungicides.

On Dec. 26, Beland reported to Wass the results of a November count of Atlantic-salmon redds — or spawning areas in the main stem of the river — between Schoodic Brook and Bracey Pond. The redds, which are cleared by the female salmon, have a bottom composed of loose rubble, sand and fine gravel. In Maine, most salmon redds are constructed in water less than 20 inches deep.

“We counted 201 redds in the main stem of the river and one redd in the lower reaches of Sinclair Brook,” Beland wrote. He also wrote that the redds were “fairly evenly distributed along the river, with the exception of the Hemlock Dam to Beddington Lake section, which was lightly utilized.”

Redd counts, made annually since 1977, have ranged from a high of 345 in 1986 to a low of 163 in 1989. The counts do not include the main stem of the river from Route 193 to Schoodic Brook, a stretch of river where redds counted in the past have averaged 60 or more.

Beland wrote that the federal grant had made possible an expanded census of the parr population of the watershed. Parr are juvenile salmon that have left the areas of the redds but have not yet developed to the smolt stage. The parr stage lasts until the fish is ready, as a smolt, to migrate to the sea.

Average to above-average parr populations were found at three permanent sampling sites above Route 9, Beland wrote. A “mediocre” parr population was found at a permanent sampling site in Deblois. Both branches of the river were sampled. Parr populations on the river’s West Branch were found to be “relatively low … probably a reflection of the general scarcity of spawning habitat that we observed in the West Branch,” Beland wrote.

All three age classes of parr were found during the sampling program, including first-year young and parr in their second summer.

Beland’s conclusion about the census of the parr populations was as follows: “We found parr wherever there is suitable habitat, but the numbers tended to be unspectacular.”

The results of the parr census will be used to design the 1991 sampling program, Beland wrote. By that time, he indicated, the federally funded study should be “in full swing.”


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