Midcoast Conservancy Helps Sheepscot Salmon
We’re doing are part to ensure the continued survival and success of our Sheepscot River salmon! In addition to our fish passage barrier removal projects, habitat creation projects, and other water quality project, we also help the Maine Department of Marine Resources (DMR) plant salmon eggs each winter. And let’s face it, between warming waters, loss of habitat, predation, and other ecosystem challenges, our salmon can use all the help we can provide.
This February and March, DMR, along with partners and volunteers including Midcoast Conservancy, planted approximately 113,680 eggs in the Sheepscot River.
Eggs are buried in gravel nests, called redds, and salmon can stay in their eggs for several weeks to months until they hatch. Once eggs hatch, the juvenile fish, called fry, can stay in the gravel nest to feed for 3-4 months.
Locally, the majority of the eggs go into the West Branch Sheepscot River because that's where the habitat quality is the best and historicall where the highest emergence of juveniles occurs.
