The United States Fish and Wildlife Service will end its effort
to restore Atlantic salmon to the Connecticut River basin
because the program has not worked well enough to justify the
cost. A similar program in the Merrimack River could meet the
same fate. The program, which began in 1967, stocked six million
tiny fry and 75,000-90,000 larger salmon smolts throughout the
Connecticut River estuary in 2010, at the cost of $2 million.
Despite these efforts, only 50 adult salmon returned to the
river to spawn this spring. In order to build a self-sustaining
population, at least 1,000 salmon would need to return each
year, according to Bill Archambault, Fish and Wildlife Regional
Assistant Director for Fisheries. The USFWS will begin a three
year evaluation of the Merrimack River program before making a
final decision.