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REED POND PROJECT
CURRENT REED POND INFO (from November 2011)
Funding is officially completed!! Thank you all!
U-TUBE video produced September 2011 click here http://t.co/SELX2x9
The project awaits one more significant milestone to be deemed a full success. We are hoping for some of the released char to be spawning this fall (2011). This will complete the cycle and we will be able to rest assured that balance will eventually and naturally be restored. We will continue the captive spawning at Mountain Springs Trout Farm and continue to release char and brook trout during the year in 2012. Radio tagged fish released this fall will give us much more information about daily and annual movements, and spawning habits and locations.
Project Bullet Points:
Complete reclamation October 2010
60+ brook trout introduced November 2010
300 + char introduced June 2011
250 char introduced October 2011
300 Brook trout introduced October 2011
10 Radio tagged char introduced November 2011
Captive spawning at MSTF, November 2011
Continued releases in 2012
On-site monitoring for fish movement and loon predation
QUESTIONS?
Feel free to write: Igor Sikorsky maine@bradfordcamps.com
Links to Support Material:
PORTLAND PRESS HERALD PAGE ONE ARTICLE, MAY 2010
MOUNTAIN SPRINGS TROUT FARM WEBSITE
REED POND
U-TUBE video produced September 2011 click here!! http://t.co/SELX2x9
May 2011 update on DIFW website: http://www.maine.gov/ifw/news_events/pressreleases/index.htm
HUGE year for Reed Pond…unbelievable amount of work and success. So listen up:
**
A spring and summer effort of hundreds of hours gillnetting the pond yielded
only one Blueback. This meant
that we most probably captured all there was to catch in the pond. The time was right for supporting and breeding the captives, and killing
the pond with it’s very detrimental smelt population.
** The Army National Guard expressed an interest in sending two Sikorsky Black Hawk Guard helicopters to help. (Q: is that coincidence, ironic, or synergy?) A new dock was built to receive the ten tons of supplies and chemicals that would be flown in and dropped.
** Supplies for twenty people for four days were shuttled in by the DIFW aircraft and by the now repaired Bradford Camps’ aircraft. An incomplete list of what went into and out of the planes follows: pumps, water tanks, hoses, fuel, generators, outboard engines, food, water, life jackets, chemical testing equipment, clothes, sleeping bags, tarps, lumber, nets, fish holding equipment, tents, and lions tigers and bears.
**
October 4 was the day of reclamation. A
large boat traversed the pond along GPS guided paths and pumped the powder
slurry of Rotenone chemical from barrels, mixed with pond water, and delivered
onto the surface. This organic
chemical drifted down through the water column and essentially suffocated the
smelt that have plagued the pond for two decades. Throughout the day we boated through floating smelt and suckers, about
one every square foot across the entire pond. It is estimated that the floating fish represented only a tiny fraction
of the pond’s population.
Four
watercraft waited on the surface at the ready to hand net any char or trout that
came up stunned. Karen and I, with
guide Mark Kingsbury were in our canoe/kayak catamaran (design by Igor) and were
successful in removing about a dozen brook trout from the pond. These were revived in a clean water tank and flown out by yours truly the
following day. No char were found
that day, dead or alive.
Unseen
that day were many biologists whose job was to treat every tiny tributary above
Reed Pond that drained in. The
minute possibility of any surviving undesirables had to be eliminated or the
effort would not succeed. So the
most physically demanding job was hiking tanks up through the woods, over beaver
dams and under blow downs and sending streams of rotenone into all the nooks and
crannies.
It was actually a strange feeling at the end of the day to be on a pond, once teeming with life, and now dormant….dead. The future of the pond now all rested in the hands of the Mountain Springs Trout Hatchery where the thousands of spawned char and trout finned, oblivious of their pilgrimages. I did not expect to feel so overwhelmed and long moments of silence ensued.
**
OK! Back at it, in
So as you read this in the depth of winter, think of the little guys up there at the Reed Pond inlets. Come spring they will be joined by their native brethren, and by their cousins the blue back char of Reed Pond.
CLICK HERE FOR AOPA MAGAZINE LINK, March 2011 issue
REED POND RESTORATION
from May 2010
Quickly explained:
A new chapter is beginning for Reed Pond. It is the final step in the re-establishment of the wild Blueback Charr and the wild brook trout strains. Twenty years ago smelt were introduced (illegally) into the pond. The smelt are so successful now that they make it impossible for other fish to thrive; the blueback and brookies were near extirpation in Reed Pond. There are only twelve ponds in Maine [in the US, for that matter] that have blueback trout.
For the past two years we have been catching and removing all the brook trout and Blueback charr that we can, and placing them in a private hatchery in northern Maine. There we have been spawning and rearing fry, to be reintroduced to the pond when it is ready, starting next Spring in 2011. We have learned a lot in the process of growing these rare and, I would say, delicate char. They have needed a whole lot of TLC from Gary Picard, owner of the hatchery Mountain Springs Trout Farm.
Frank Frost, a regional fisheries biologist with Maine's Department of Fisheries and Wildlife (DIFW), has been spearheading the project. He has logged endless hours in the field, trap netting and gillnetting, working with the hatchery, writing grant proposals, applying for permits, fielding questions and concerns from the general public, and educating the critics. A lot of weight has been carried on his shoulders and we all have him to thank after this project is complete.
This fall the pond will be chemically reclaimed using a product called Rotenone. It sounds like poison, but rather is a temporary toxin produced by a tree in South America to ward off herbivore animals. To gill breathing aquatic animals, it blocks the flow of oxygen to the gills. In fact, if an incapacitated fish is put in fresh water, it immediately revives without harm. Part of the reclamation effort will be to collect and revive any remaining blueback and brook trout that come to the surface. Rotenone biodegrades naturally in a short amount of time.
Bradford Camps has donated all the flying that the project so far has required. Our cabins on the pond have been used by the DIFW extensively. The value of these two things is over $12,000 to date. By the end of the project Bradford Camps will have donated over $20,000 in flying and cabin services. The rotenone has been purchased, and the hatchery expenses to date have been paid for with DIFW funds, with Maine grants (primarily from the Outdoor Heritage Fund), and Federal grants.
The Nature Conservancy also has been a partner in the program. They have donated money, and also have helped to make sure that the project lives up to TNC ecological standards. We are very happy that we have The Nature Conservancy's support. They certainly lend a great deal of credibility to the ecological aspects of the project.
Now we need the final piece of the puzzle. The project is gravely in need of money to finance the final two years of hatchery rearing and growing expenses. Mountain Springs Trout Farm has a contract for $75,000 hold the fish, breed them, rear the young, and transport them to Reed. This is a one time, two year contract. On July 1, 2012 the project will be complete and all the fish will be back in the pond.
The state has tapped all the resources that it can at this point and we are looking for you all to help. A federal 1:1 matching program has been located so all we really need to raise is $37,500. TNC has agreed to receive money earmarked for the project, so donations are tax deductible, and 100% of all donations will go directly to the hatchery contract.
WHEN COMPLETED:
In two to three years after reintroduction, Reed Pond will be a veritable trout factory AGAIN.. There are those of you who remember how good it used to be. For many of you a day at Reed Pond still remains your best day of fishing ever. The pond is deep. cold, completely unaffected by any nearby timber cutting (thank you, TNC), and very low in acidity. This all means fast growth for the fish when they are released. WE really look forward to bringing you all back in to Reed Pond to experience a beautiful place, and great fishing. Just like it used to be.
SOME PHOTOS, with captions:
