Perhaps you are wondering why there are no salmon in Aroostook County’s Salmon Brook, a tributary of the Aroostook River which once sported lots and lots of Atlantic salmon. Well, wonder no more.
Cast your line here, for two interesting articles about this issue, written by Lloyd Irland, a forestry consultant who lives in Wayne.
From clear cuts to pollution to food processing plants to dams, the story is not a good one. And in the mid to late 1800s, tributaries were turned into sluiceways for logs, ruining fish spawning habitat. But a highly regarded fisheries biologist argues this can all be fixed.
In his second article, Cleaning up the Aroostook, Lloyd tackles some of the difficult issues with restoring salmon habitat on the Aroostook River. One difficulty is getting cooperation from landowners and farmers.
Lloyd concludes,“There are no single pipes to fix, instead a multitude of small local projects, and field by field improvements in farm practice. None will make much difference individually until enough of them have been done to repair the tributaries.”