MONTPELIER, Vt. — A top U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service official says a 45-year effort to restore Atlantic salmon to the Connecticut River is being abandoned.
This Sun Journal file photo from February 10, 2012 shows volunteer Ernie Hilton of Starks holding a sample of endangered Atlantic Salmon eggs. Despite a 45 year effort to repopulate New England rivers with the fish, the only successful region has been Maine's Penobscot River.
Regional assistant director for fisheries Bill Archambault says that last year the service spent about $2 million on the Connecticut River program and only about 50 adult fish returned to the basin to reproduce.
He says officials are beginning a three-year process to determine if a similar program should continue in the Merrimack River basin of Massachusetts and New Hampshire.
The only bright spot for Atlantic salmon in the region is Maine's Penobscot River, where hundreds of fish returned last year.
Archambault says the problem is the small number of salmon that survive in the North Atlantic. Scientists don't understand what's causing the low survival rate.
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