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Atlantic salmon are returning to the Penobscot River in the largest numbers seen in a decade. This is due to cold, wet conditions this spring but is also a testament to an improving habitat on the river where several dams have been removed.
As of Tuesday, 1,519 salmon had been counted in traps on the Penobscot, according to a weekly report from the Department of Marine Resources. That’s the most since 2012, according to the department. On the Kennebec River, 157 salmon had been counted by the end of July. That’s nearly twice last year’s total.
“It’s been a good year for salmon … and a spectacular year for river herring,” Sean Ledwin, the sea run fisheries and habitat director for DMR, told the Bangor Daily News editorial board.
More than 5.5 million river herring were counted on the Penobscot and more than 4 million on the Kennebec by late July. River herring include blueback herring and alewives.
Ledwin attributed the rise in salmon and herring in Maine to better conditions in rivers and the ocean, and the removal or modification of dams, which opened up much more habitat for migratory fish.
Maine is home to the only remaining populations of wild Atlantic salmon in the United States. The fish are federally protected under the Endangered Species Act. The Penobscot River has the state’s most productive Atlantic salmon run, but fishing for them is prohibited.
Opening up more habitat for salmon through the removal of dams and other barriers that impede their migration to and from the ocean is a major factor in the population increase, John Burrows of the Atlantic Salmon Federation said in an interview with the Bangor Daily News editorial board.
Dams not only impede young fish from leaving and later returning to rivers, but they also slow the journey, causing salmon to languish in warming water and to drain their stores of energy.
Through the Penobscot River Restoration Project, two dams were removed and a third was bypassed on the state’s largest river. This opened up 2,000 miles of river and stream habitat, according to the project, which raised $25 million to support the work.
The benefits of this work go well beyond the Penobscot River itself. For example, the Atlantic Salmon Federation is working on an improved fishway on Crooked Brook in Danforth, which is part of the massive Penobscot watershed, that will open up more habitat for migratory fish. The hope is that millions of alewives will then return to the Mattawamkeag River, boosting tourism in the remote Washington County town and, perhaps eventually leading to a commercial alewife harvest.
Burrows said one of the encouraging trends is the increasing number of native salmon that are returning to Maine’s rivers. About 90 percent of the Atlantic salmon counted in the Penobscot were initially stocked in the river as smolts when they were two years old. Yet, a growing number are born in the river, migrate to the open ocean and return years later to spawn. In the Kennebec, nearly all the returning Atlantic salmon are native. Salmon on the Kennebec have to be trucked around a dam in Waterville to reach their spawning grounds in the Sandy River.
While both Ledwin and Burrows were optimistic that this year’s salmon returns are part of an upward trend, they noted that the numbers we’re currently seeing pale in comparison with historic highs.
Still, the generally rising salmon numbers show that preserving and improving habitat, especially removing barriers to fish that return to Maine river to spawn, benefits numerous species, including salmon, herring, alewives and sturgeon.
“It’s good news,” Burrows said. “We’ve stopped the decline and are showing signs of positive changes.”