We just got back from visiting our friends Lynn and Jane. They are volunteers at the Green Lake National Fish Hatchery that is located in Ellsworth, Maine (Lynn and Jane had the RV site next to us when we were volunteering at Santa Ana NWR in Texas).
We arrived at their RV early Tuesday morning and, after spending a couple of hours catching up and visiting, they took us on a fascinating tour of the Green Lake National Fish Hatchery. This blog post would be a lot more interesting if I had taken my camera with me on the tour!
Green Lake Hatchery rears approximately 1,000,000 fish annually. These annual releases currently account for 70% of the USA home water returns of adult Atlantic salmon.
Each winter, eggs, received from Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery’s brood stock facility, are disinfected and placed in trays in the incubation room at Green Lake.
As the eggs begin to hatch (March), they’re moved to tanks in the fry nursery area. The hatched eggs are now “fry” and remain in the nursery until they are about three months old. Fry are routinely moved from the nursery area to larger outdoor tanks to prevent over-crowding.
After this wonderful tour, we went back to their RV where Jane made a fabulous lunch. I also discovered I had my camera with me all along-good grief!
After lunch we drove over to the Craig Brook Fish Hatchery in East Orland, Maine.
Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery was established in 1889 to raise and stock juvenile Atlantic salmon for Maine waters. The Hatchery raises one species of salmon - sea-run Atlantic salmon (Salmo salar).
Since Lynn and Jane know the employees and volunteer couple at this fish hatchery, we were given a personal, behind-the-scene, tour with one of the employees. He was very informative and we had a great time.
Employee only area
Broodfish
There is also a wonderful Atlantic Salmon Flyfishing Museum at the hatchery.
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