DOOR COUNTY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — Some large sportfish are on the move in Door County.
Chinook salmon are making their way upstream to spawn.
And while a mechanical issue stalled some of Monday’s processing efforts, scientists say the season is young.
At the Strawberry Creek Salmon Spawning Facility, hundreds of Chinook salmon are pushed to the end of this holding pond.
“They make their way up into the pond, and they have one thing in mind, that’s going straight upstream,” said Jesse Landwehr, DNR Wild Rose Fish Hatchery Supervisor.
Jesse Landwehr says the slow process involves netting the salmon and transporting them up and out of the water. Biologists gather information about the Chinook, and take as many tiny round eggs as needed.
“The fish that are coming in, they’re at the end of their life cycle. Their last goal is to spawn. and lay eggs. And we’re going to use that offspring, those eggs to produce fish for future years,” he said.
Scientists say the sportfish were introduced to Lake Michigan in the 1960s, but have had trouble reproducing naturally. Enter the Strawberry Creek Facility. DNR Fisheries Team Supervisor Nick Legler says flowing water at site typically provides a helping hand.
“We actually have a big diesel engine that we pump water from the lake up into the stream and the pond. But unfortunately, sometime yesterday evening, between yesterday evening and this morning, it seemed like the pump stopped pumping water. So we came in this morning, and and there was very little flow going through the pond, and the dissolved oxygen levels were relatively low. So a lot of the salmon did end up dying,” said Nick Legler, DNR Fisheries Team Supervisor.
DNR officials estimate about 40 percent of the salmon died. Jesse Landwehr says these eggs will not be shipped to the hatchery, but used for bait instead. He says the healthy fish were sent to a local food pantry.
“That’s the advantage of the season being a long season. It’s a three-week run on Chinook salmon. So this is day one. It’s an early run in the season anyway. We’ll re-group, and we’ll be ready and still be able to get all the eggs we need to meet our stocking quotas in the future,” he said.
DNR officials spent the day troubleshooting the problem with the pump. As of Monday evening, it was back up and running.
As far as salmon stocking, they say they hope to collect 2.5-3 million eggs, which is up from last year’s goal of 2.5 million.
