Lake Ontario Salmon Egg collection shortfall reaches critical point

[tbromund]

BUFFALO NEWS ARTICLE

http://www.buffalonews.com/cityregion/niagaracounty/story/199100.html

SYRACUSE PAPER ARTICLE http://www.syracuse.com/poststandard/stories/index.ssf?/base/sports-1/11935621193040.xml&coll=1

EMERGENCY, Guys, this is serious. Time is running out for this egg taking season. The State needs to GET SOME PRESSURE TO ""IMMEDIATELY"" TAKE WHATEVER ACTION POSSIBLE TO COLLECT AS MANY EGGS AS POSSIBLE IN THE SHORT PERIOD THAT IS LEFT TO DO SO. They are well under 50% of the way to their goal for eggs and fast running out of time. As it has been explained to us at LOTSA , the Salmon River, as the brood stock stream, will get 100% of its stocking allotment REGARDLESS, with all the rest of the stocking sites receiving their pro-rated proportions of what little is left (if there is any). (read: not very many fish to be stocked anywhere but the salmon river next spring).

As indicated above in the Buffalo News article, the DEC along with volunteers collected eggs both by electroshocking 18 Mile Creek and requesting eggs and milt from fishermen a Fisherman’s Park on Friday and Saturday. Well, we EQUALED THE BEST DAY THEY HAD AT THE HATCHERY THIS YEAR ON FRIDAY AT 18 MILE AND THE QUALITY OF THE EGGS WERE EXCELLENT.

EVERYONE PLEASE CONTACT YOUR STATE REPRESENTATIVES TO PRESSURE THEM TO AUTHORIZE AND ENACT WHATEVER MEASURES ARE NECESSARY (MORE ELECTROSHOCKING AT TRIBS SUCH AS 18 MILE OAK ORCHARD, GENESEE RIVER ETC.) for as long as necessary TO ENSURE THE DEC GETS THE 3+ MILLION EGGS IT NEEDS TO FULFILL OUR CHINOOK SALMON STOCKING NEEDS FOR NEXT YEAR.

In real terms, what this means is there will be NO PEN PROJECTS anywhere on the lake next spring and what few fish are remaining after the Salmon River stocks are fulfilled, will be spread out across all the other stocking sites around the Lake. That could be 5000 fish per site, it could be 1000 fish per site, it could be no fish at any other stocking site if all of the fish raised are needed to fulfill the Salmon River’s needs to ensure sufficient returns to the hatchery.

There is still a small window to get this done before the salmon run is completely over for the year, but we need to act fast, every day this action is delayed is one less opportunity to take the needed eggs from other sites.

Thanks,

Tim Bromund

LOTSA