Biological Consequences of the Coaster Brook Trout Restoration Stocking Program in Lake Superior Tributaries within Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Abstract

The coaster Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis is a Lake Superior ecotype representing intraspecific variation that has been impacted by habitat loss and overfishing. Hatchery strains of Brook Trout derived from populations in Lake Superior were stocked into streams within Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore, Michigan, as part of an effort to rehabilitate adfluvial coaster Brook Trout. Wild and hatchery Brook Trout from three streams (Mosquito River, Hurricane River, and Sevenmile Creek) were examined for movement behavior, size, physiology, and reproductive success. Behavior and size of the stocked fish were similar to those of wild fish, and less than 15% of the stocked, tagged Brook Trout emigrated from the river into which they were stocked. There was little evidence of successful reproduction by stocked Brook Trout. Similar to the results of other studies, our findings suggest that the stocking of nonlocal Brook Trout strains where a local population already exists results in limited natural reproduction and should be avoided, particularly if the mechanisms governing the ecotype of interest are poorly understood.Received April 1, 2012; accepted November 26, 2012

Impact of river regulation and hydropeaking on the growth, condition and field metabolism of Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis)

“…The Batchawana River was chosen as a natural control for the Magpie River, given that the two rivers have similar historical mean annual discharge, geology, chemical compositions and biological communities (Marty, Smokorowski, & Power, ; Smokorowski et al., ). Both resident (riverine) and potadromous (migratory between lentic and lotic environments) populations of Brook Trout have been documented in tributaries of Lake Superior (Leonard, Stott, Loope, Kusnierz, & Sreenivasan, ). Therefore, river segments where migrations from Lake Superior were prevented by a large waterfall at the downstream end were sampled to avoid the confounding factor of growth and condition differences likely to exist between resident and potadromous populations (Robillard, Casselman, McLaughlin, & Mackereth, ).…”

Genetic and Morphological Divergence in Three Strains of Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis Commonly Stocked in Lake Superior

“…Hatchery supplementation has in the past been used as a means to augment or attempt to restore populations, and is likely to continue to be a component of restoration efforts in the future [11] , [13] . However, this practice often fails in creating self-sustaining populations or results in populations with reduced reproductive success, both with brook trout and with other salmonids [14] – [16] . This is often ascribed to use of hatchery stocks that are not locally adapted to the habitats where they are introduced.…”

Migration, Size, and Age Structure of Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) from Two Lake Superior Tributaries

“…Subsequent to the stocking, Stimmell (2006) observed that some of the wild brook trout exhibited migratory behavior as represented by juvenile outmigration. Although the stocking that took place may have led to limited introgression of Tobin Harbor genetics into the wild brook trout populations of these two streams, survival of these stocked fish was low and little or no successful spawning likely took place (Leonard et al, 2013). As a result, the movement and growth exhibited by the wild fish from these two streams is likely representative of the populations before the recent stocking took place.…”