It's not a complete surprise, given how deeply the coronavirus pandemic has cut into the flow of normal activities in the U.S., but it is important to note: The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in March suspended its tagging program of salmon and trout raised at state hatcheries around Lake Michigan.
The decision, designed to protect the health of its employees and the public, means very few fish planted in the lake in 2020 will have a unique ID number to help biologists track fish movements, survival, growth and return to creel.
And in another setback to science-based management of the fishery, no USFWS or Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources fisheries personnel will be collecting tags or other information from fish caught and registered at traditional fishing tournaments.
"Because of the pandemic, we don’t have the opportunity to engage anglers like we normally would," said to Chuck Bronte, senior fish biologist with the Service's Great Lakes Fish Tagging and Recovery Lab in Green Bay. "That’s the really important part, the tag recovery. That’s the business end of it."
Prior to its shutdown in March, the USFWS was able to tag some fish in Illinois, about 188,000 chinook salmon and 61,000 steelhead (rainbow trout), according to Bronte.
But the cessation of activities has meant no fish in Wisconsin, Michigan or Indiana have been implanted this year with the unique identification numbers.
Significantly, most of the chinook salmon stocked in the lake in 2020 will be untagged.
The result will be a lapse in one of the most important data sets for Lake Michigan fisheries managers.
For the last decade, the Service has used a portable mass marking facility to travel to hatcheries in Wisconsin and other states to insert coded wire tags in young fish.
The tiny cylindrical tags have i.d. numbers on them that indicate where and when the fish was raised and stocked. The information can be read with an electronic wand after the fish is caught.
The mass marking program has advanced the understanding that about 60% of the chinook salmon in the lake are wild fish. The kings, and some coho salmon, are produced through natural spawning, mostly in the clean, gravelly streams on the Michigan side of the lake.
But this year there will be a gap in the data set due to a lack of fish marked and the absence of fisheries personnel to recover and read tags from fish planted in previous years.
The information obtained on wild and stocked fish, combined with prey fish surveys, is critical to resource managers as they attempt to balance the fishery.
When asked by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, the USFWS issued a statement on its decisions: "The health and safety of our employees and the American public we serve is our highest priority. Out of an abundance of caution and in accordance with past and present guidance from the U.S. Office of Personnel Management, the Office of Management and Budget, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and state and local authorities, we are temporarily suspending the work of the mass marking trailers."
Likewise, the Wisconsin DNR has prevented its employees from interacting with the public in normal field activities.
Before the coronavirus pandemic changed its plans, the USFWS planned to tag 1.2 million chinook salmon and 570,000 steelhead at Wisconsin hatcheries.
Overall, it had intended to tag 6.5 million salmon and trout in the states bordering Lake Michigan, including about 2.5 million lake trout, 2.1 million chinook and 1.9 million steelhead.
The USFWS has developed contingency plans to operate the mass marking trailer with fewer people if necessary to maintain physical distancing. But the plan would require approval by upper level agency management.
Since COVID-19 infections are on the rise in Wisconsin and most other states, it appears unlikely the staff will get the green light to tag fish this year.
Despite the coronavirus pandemic, the Wisconsin DNR proceeded with fish stocking in Lake Michigan. As of May 29, the agency planted 1.2 million chinook, 407,082 coho, 365,742 steelhead and 353,217 brown trout. The USFWS also stocked 350,000 lake trout.
The state hatchery program was considered an essential activity by Wisconsin officials and has been staffed without interruption this year.
Cormorant comment period
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will accept comments through Monday on a proposal to give states, tribes and aquaculture facilities the ability to use lethal measures to help control double-crested cormorants in parts of the U.S., including Wisconsin.
The USFWS introduced a draft rule and draft environmental impact statement as part of ongoing efforts to address conflicts between cormorants and wild and stocked fisheries.
The proposal would establish a permit to allow killing the birds to "relieve or prevent impacts" from cormorants on lands within state or tribal jurisdictions, according to the Service.
To comment, visit regulations.gov, and follow the instructions for submitting comments to Docket No. FWS-HQ-MB-2019-0103.
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July 19, 2020 at 01:10AM
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Mass marking and tag collection for Lake Michigan salmon and trout has been suspended - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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