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Space for Salmon  

(Published April 27, 2008)

        Atlantic salmon stocked in New Hampshire rivers have it tough. Never mind the predators that hunt them as adults living in the ocean. Or the challenges they face - dams that block their way or hungry striped bass - when they try to return to the rivers where they grew up to spawn the next generation. In their first two years of life, the fish must find just the right stretch of river to survive in: not too warm or too fast or too dirty.

        Those places are becoming harder to find, as more of the state is developed. Paved roads and parking lots send sand and hot water into the rivers, and development strips the land of trees that cool the rivers, regulate the flow and filter pollutants.

        Fish and Game biologists and the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests are working to protect the pristine waters that are left, and to make things a little easier for these beloved fish.

        While much of the work around Atlantic salmon has focused on restoring habitat - reconstructing or removing dams and stocking fish in places where they have disappeared - the partners have worked the last four years to conserve the habitat that remains.

        They have received more than $1.4 million from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and they have created a system for identifying exactly where that money can be best used.

        The group isn't focused solely on the riverbanks, however. It is also targeting upland properties that are home to the ponds and streams that feed the bigger rivers and are the source of clean water that the fish need.

        This year, they will use a $235,000 grant and $47,500 in private donations to buy an easement on about 960 acres in Hill that drain into the Smith River, which feeds the Merrimack River and is home to some of the best salmon habitat in the state.

        Chris Wells, policy director for the Forest Society, said the salmon are an important part of the state's ecology and history. They are also a symbol of the health of the state's rivers.

        The Merrimack and its tributaries can support fish "that have been developed and polluted out of other rivers in the East," Wells said. "It's really part of what makes our state special."

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Lori Duff/Concord Monitor