Saco Salmon Restoration Alliance & Hatchery
P.O. Box 115, Saco, ME 04072
We are a publicly funded all-volunteer non-profit organization.
Despite the obstacles of COVID-19, our volunteers have continued to contribute between 2000 and 3000 hours yearly to keep our salmon hatchery in operation.
News 2021
January - February 2021
Egg planting: Our University of New England (UNE) intern and citizenship volunteers this term are Chris Spino (240 hours), Nate Roy (120 hours), and Nick Granata (15 hours). Our first egg planting training in Swan Pond Creek was January 30th. We had four volunteers participating in the training exercise and 700 eggs were planted. Our second egg planting in Swan Pond Creek was February 13th where we planted 4,300 eggs.
Fish Friends: Between January and early February, Pam Aslinger coordinated distribution of 105 eyed eggs to each of 13 area schools for the Fish Friends education program.
March 2021
On March 1st, 4 of the oldest broodstock were released into the lower Saco River. On the same day, 62 smolts were moved from the hatchery to the UNE Marine Science Center (MSC). After the move to UNE MSC, the smolts were weighed, measured, and tagged. There are currently 112 broodstock at the UNE MSC weighing an average of 1.7# each. They are all doing very well. Here are the pictures of our broodstock at the UNE MSC
On March 5th, 3600 eggs were planted by two teams in Cooks Brook. March 6th was the last egg planting scheduled for 2021.
April –2021
We could not host hatchery tours for Fish Friends schools. Therefore, the salmon fry that were at the 11 area schools were returned to the hatchery and successfully stocked along with any residual fry in the hatchery aquarium by our volunteers in area streams.
May 2021
Hatchery tank 7 repairs were completed. E-fished smolts were moved to tank 7 and any residual e-fished parr were moved to tank 6. Tank 5 is reserved this year for e-fished parr provided by the UNE MSC. When the smolts are big enough they will be moved to the larger tank 4 to be raised to adults for the UNE MSC program.
June 2021
Atlantic Salmon Federation – Maine Council arranged for the manufacture of Fish Friends mugs to be distributed to all teachers involved with the Fish Friends at area schools. David Adams volunteered to personally deliver the mugs to the 11 area schools in our program June 7, 2021. The teachers were thrilled with the mugs!
Many thanks to all who contributed their energy, expertise, financial support, and volunteer service to our mission.
Prepared by Garry Kasten, Treasurer
Stocking Jan & Feb
UNE MSC broodstock Fish Friends stocking Fish Friends teachers mug
