While remarkable progress has been made cleaning up the polluted waters of Lake Ontario, problems remain in the embayments, the shoreline shallows, streams, and creeks where mature fish lay their eggs. Here, DEC scientists conduct a census of young fish. Photograph by Pat Sullivan/DEC.

DEC researchers identify juvenile fish by species, number and condition adding to knowledge about hatchery management practices, water quality, and environmental conditions. Photograph by Pat Sullivan/DEC.

The State of
the Lake 2002

Highlights of this year’s State of the Lake series of public information meeting organized by New York State Department of Environmental Conservation included some bad news about the decline of the native Atlantic salmon, and some good news about the success of pen-rearing Chinook salmon, and a dramatic rise in the size of lake trout.

The DEC kicked off the fifth annual symposium last week in Lockport where about 70 participants took part in the presentation designed to keep sport fishing enthusiasts, and others interested in Lake Ontario fisheries informed about DEC research, activities and management practices on Lake Ontario, its tributaries and embayments.

Similar meetings are scheduled in other communities along Lake Ontario’s southern shore, tributaries and embayments. For anyone interested in "citizen science," it’s a great opportunity to learn about the biology and ecology of the Great Lakes.

In Lake Ontario, the DEC manages six species vital to the multi-million dollar sport fishing industry: Atlantic, Coho, and Chinook salmon, Lake, Brown, and Steelhead trout. Of the six, only lake trout and Atlantic salmon are native species.

Atlantic Salmon
Atlantic salmon was once naturally abundant in Lake Ontario but so seriously declined over the first half of the last century, it was thought necessary in the 1980s to start restocking the species to save it and the sport fishing industry which relies on it. While initially successful, precise records kept over 17 years show a steady decline in the number of Atlantic salmon and, to their frustration, scientists at the DEC don’t know why.

Tom Eckert, the DEC’s resident salmon expert in the St. Vincent station says, bluntly, "Atlantic salmon do poorly in Lake Ontario."

One explanation for the perplexing disappearance of Atlantic salmon from Lake Ontario, revolves around the theory of ‘out-migration’-- the notion that healthy young fish swim out of lake waters, over several St. Lawrence Seaway dams, into the open Atlantic. Because of the dams, the fish are then locked out, unable to return to spawn as they would, by nature, do.

Another theory focuses on reproduction problems, water quality and certain vitamin deficiencies. Reproductive biologists know Atlantic salmon eggs are very sensitive to water quality and among other elements, thiamine content in breeding pools. Some evidence suggests reproductive rates may suffer when thiamine levels are low and water quality is otherwise deficient.

When pressed to pick one of the these two theories to best explain the cause of the disappearance of Lake Ontario’s Atlantic salmon, Tom Eckert, of NYDEC said, " I take the Fifth."

Chinook Salmon
A big success for the DEC has been the management of the king of salmon, the Chinook, which is very popular with sports fishing enthusiasts. The DEC first began to stock the lake with Chinook about twenty years ago.

Earlier attempts to stock Chinook salmon in Lake Ontario were made in the late 1800s, but never in very large numbers. The Chinook is a native of the Pacific, where 100-pound fish are not uncommon. The New York state record Chinook is 47-pounds.

Lake Ontario Chinook populations depend on regular releases of hatchery-raised fish, in part because of the lack of enough suitable spawning habitat in shallow waters around the lake to maintain their numbers. Chemical pollution of the water in many of the streams, creeks, and embayments around the lake is still so bad the Chinook salmon (and other species) cannot successfully reproduce.

Except to breed, and occasionally chase prey near shore, Chinook salmon spend most of their life in deep, open water. They feed on alewives, among other species, thereby contributing to the control of the huge alewives populations which, twenty years or so ago, often resulted in a litter of rotting fish on the lake’s beaches.

Lake Trout
Restoration of the Lake Ontario lake trout fishery is one of the DEC’s greatest success stories. As local sport fish charter businesses know, lake trout are very popular with sports fishermen. Anglers from around the world travel to Lake Ontario to hook one of these prized fish. The lake trout restocking program is a superb example of the best in fisheries management programs.

"Wild native lake trout populations had completely collapsed and almost disappeared in Lake Ontario by the end of World War II," according to Tom Eckert. They fell victim to pollution, over fishing and the parasitic sea lamprey, an eel-like creature that attaches itself to the lake trout and feeds off it until it is full and drops off or the host fish dies. Chemical control of sea lamprey met with some success in the early 60s, but insufficient numbers of juvenile lake trout survived to bring the species back.

"Restocking began in 1972 with a strain found in the Finger Lakes," Eckert said. "Today, Lake Ontario lake trout are highly prized, trophy fish."

Eckert says anglers, in increasing numbers, report to the DEC catching lake trout that are 16-17-years-old and sometimes in excess of 30-inches.

Hatchery management
The DEC spends a lot of its time and resources researching and monitoring fish hatchery practices in the hope of optimizing survival rates. As Tom Eckert likes to point out, "not every species benefits from the same conditions," noting that different species thrive in different water temperatures, on different diets, and from different release techniques.

Three methods of releasing young fish into Lake Ontario are currently used by the DEC. Some fish are released directly into streams or creeks and allowed to immediately fend for themselves, others are kept in pens in the same streams and creeks and reared for up to a month before release - until they double in size, get a taste for natural food that drifts into the pens, and ‘imprint’ for a longer period on their natal waters to which they will return to spawn.

A newer, experimental (and expensive) release technique involves transporting yearling lake and brown trout fish on barges into deep, open water. Eckert says it’s too soon to tell if the innovative barge release will work better than shoreline or tributary releases, but the effort is designed to maximize the deep water dwelling fishes’ survival rate.

Cormorants
Control of the double-crested cormorant is a real hot button issue with the DEC and the commercial sport fishing community. The cormorant is a native species of water fowl that was devastated by DDT and other chemicals in the 50s and 60s. Once DDT was banned in the 1970s, and other environmental conditions improved, the nearly extinct cormorants have gradually come back, but in some places in such great numbers as to have a serious impact on young fish.

An adult cormorant consumes a pound of fish per day, smallmouth bass, one of New York’s favored sport fish, being its favorite food. The DEC estimates cormorants in New York state eat in excess of a million pounds of fish a year. Some anglers also blame cormorants for decimating the juvenile walleye populations.

In areas where large colonies of cormorants live, like Little Galloo Island, near Watertown, in the eastern basin of Lake Ontario, smallmouth bass populations have dropped sharply because of cormorant predation.

While some fishermen believe the DEC ought to be doing more to reduce the cormorant population, the DEC is bound to follow federal guidelines which protect cormorants. Shooting cormorants is not allowed.

At the same time, the DEC is challenged by birding and environmental groups opposed to DEC measures taken to reduce, by oiling their unhatched eggs, the numbers of new born chicks.

The DEC recently took over ownership of Little Galloo Island and its 7,500 nesting cormorants. Owning the property will give the DEC more control in its efforts to control the population and, at the same time, protect other rare birds that use the island to nest and raise their young.

At the time DEC Commissioner Cahill said, "Cormorants are an important component of the Lake Ontario ecosystem. Our research clearly shows that cormorants are adversely affecting bass populations, the Lake Ontario fishery and the people who depend on that fishery."

Human consumption advisory
The Department of Environmental Conservation monitors and evaluates contaminant levels in all freshwater fish found in New York waters. The NYS Department of Health advises eating no more than one-half pound of fish per week from any freshwater source. Women of childbearing age, infants, children under the age of 15 should eat no fish at all.

No one should eat eel, catfish, carp or Chinook salmon, lake trout over 25-inches or brown trout over 20-inches. Smaller lake and brown trout may be eaten in one-half pound portions once a month.

Known contaminants include PCBs, dioxin, and Mirexindustrial chemicals that settled into sediment on the bottom of the lake. Other contaminants occasionally found in smaller concentrations or in isolated locations include mercury, chlordane and heavy metals like cadmium.

For more information about eating Lake Ontario fish, including how to trim and cook fish to minimize contaminant content log on to: http://www.health.state.ny.us/nysdoh/environ/01fish.pdf

Consumption advisories are included with material received when buying a fishing license, posted in most tackle shops, or from the NY Department of Health, (800) 458-1158.