October 8, 2019 — The Department of Marine Resources will employ a novel approach to rearing Atlantic salmon for restoring native populations on the East Branch of the Penobscot River.
The project, funded through a $1,075,000 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Species Recovery Grant, will involve a partnership among DMR, Cooke Aquaculture USA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, NOAA Fisheries and the Penobscot Indian Nation to grow juvenile Atlantic salmon to adult size in aquaculture pens located in Machias Bay near Cutler. The adult salmon will then be released into the East Branch of the Penobscot, a river with large amounts of high-quality salmon habitat, to spawn.
Smolts raised from native broodstock by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service at the Green Lake National Fish Hatchery in Ellsworth and smolts captured in the wild using rotary screw traps will be used to stock the marine net pens in 2020, 2021 and 2022. To ensure the genetic integrity of salmon in the river, only smolts of Penobscot River origin will be released.