SUNDERLAND, Mass. — August 5, 2012 — The dream seemed tantalizingly within reach: restoring majestic Atlantic salmon to the Connecticut River, where dams had blocked the waterway so completely the overfished population became extinct.
Now, almost 50 years and more than $25 million later, the federal government is giving up on restocking the river.
The coveted sport fish follow an intricate, circuitous life journey along the 407-mile long Connecticut. Born in tributaries, they swim to the ocean off Greenland before returning to that same tributary to spawn the next generation. Many of their most daunting foes — dams — are now equipped with fish ladders and lifts, allowing the easiest passage in centuries for the salmon.
But the fish confront a new nemesis: the changing ocean. So few Connecticut salmon today are surviving their arduous sea journey — a tenfold decline since the early 1990s — federal officials say they can no longer justify spending money to save them. This year, only 54 fish returned to the Connecticut River.
No one knows exactly why, although theories abound, including the consequences of climate change.
“We really thought this was going to work . . . but the quality of the ocean is changing,’’ Mickey Novak, longtime hatchery manager at the Richard Cronin National Salmon Station in Sunderland, said as he stood in a concrete holding pool with one of the silver fish writhing in his hands.
A decision has not been made about whether the station will remain open.
The Connecticut’s story is a painful lesson about the challenge of repairing nature — and an ominous indicator for Atlantic salmon in more northern locales. Maine salmon populations are nowhere near levels that would allow them to be self-sustaining without stocking despite decades of effort, and scientists worry that the fish — or the funding — may disappear before they figure out how to save them.
Read the full story at the Boston Globe.