Endangered Atlantic Salmon

An Atlantic salmon being released into the East Branch

NPS / Alyssa Mattei

The Atlantic salmon, also known as "King of Fish," is an anadromous fish. Anadromous means it can live in fresh and salt water. Adult salmon spend their time in the ocean, but leave the ocean and travel upriver to return to the same spot they were hatched to spawn (release their eggs). The Gulf of Maine DPS Atlantic salmon are endangered and protected.

Life Cycle of the Atlantic Salmon
The female Atlantic salmon spawn in the fall. They dig nests in the river with their tails to lay their eggs in freshwater. Over the winter, the eggs develop into very small salmon, called alevin and in the spring, the alevin swim out of the redd and are then called fry. Fry grow into parr. For 2 to 3 years, the parr continue to grow in freshwater before transforming into smolts. Once they enter the smolts’ stage, the salmon gills and organs change, allowing them to swim to the ocean where they spend 1 to 2 years maturing into adults.
The adult Atlantic salmon return to the river where they were born to lay eggs. After spawning in freshwater, the adults, now called kelts, swim back to the ocean to possibly return to spawn again in future years.

Threats and Concerns
Native Atlantic salmon were once found in almost every river north of the Hudson River, but due to the effects of industrial and agricultural development (including habitat destruction, dams, and historic overfishing) the only native populations of Atlantic salmon are in the United States are found in Maine.
Other threats to the salmon include: stress, poor water quality, degraded freshwater habitats from land use practices, fish diseases, predation from introduced and invasive species, and interbreeding with escaped fish raised on farms for commercial aquaculture. All of these factors are compounded by climate change.

• NOAA Fisheries, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the New England Fishery Management Council, and the State of Maine manage Atlantic salmon.

 

Open Descriptive Transcript

Descriptive Transcript

The video starts with a graphic image. A NPS Arrowhead Logo on the left and a body of test to the right of the logo. The text reads Endangered Atlantic Salmon Release, Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument, June 2023. The background is a blurred sunset of the Katahdin region with colors of muted dark purple and light pink on top fading into a deep dark purple on the bottom of the slide.

This slide is text based. The text is white and reads: “Atlantic Salmon face great challenges that endanger their population in Maine:

• Long Migration journeys to Greenland and back to Maine
• Overfishing
• Pollution
• Dams

The background is blurred image that appears like a gradient of mostly dark green and black.

The slide transitions to a new text slide that reads: “But we have a chance to restore salmon where they’ve long been absent.”

A wide shot video of rapids formed by the Penobscot River appears on the screen. The river is high with large grey boulders on both sides of the river and on the sides of it. The forest that borders the river is lush and green. It is a sunny blue sky day with large white and grey rain clouds in the distance. The camera moves to a closer up shot of Penobscot River rapids, focusing on the water flowing over rocks and boulders. “As part of an effort to restore salmon to the East Branch of the Penobscot River, salmon were raised to maturity and then released in its high quality habitat.”

Scene shifts to a close up of a salmon researcher’s hand on a tub. The researcher is wearing a navy blue sweater underneath waders, they place a net into a salmon holding tank and pull a salmon out of the large holding tank with a large net. The salmon in this holding tank had a harmless GPS device placed inside the abdomens to track them as they spawn and then journey back to the ocean.

The researcher puts the salmon into a smaller holding tank that look like a large white plastic cooler. The cooler serves as an anesthetic bath to prepare them for surgery.

The scene shifts to a close up of a scientist’s hands placing the salmon on a large brown scale.

After the fish are weighed, there is a close of video of hands inserting GPS device into a salmon. The salmon is placed on a wet cloth on top of a wooden platform device for the procedure. After inserting the GPS device, the scientist sutures the fish back up quickly before placing it back into a holding tank. The tank is filled with water for the fish to recover.

A close up video of the salmon fins, indicating that the salmon is moving and swimming in the holding tank.

Scene shifts to a close-up of hands placing salmon in a black bag. The researcher gently places the black bag to the river and slides the salmon with the inserted GPS device out of the long black bag into the East Branch of the Penobscot river.

Transition to a scene of hands securing a large, long, translucent yellow striped tube onto the side of the truck’s holding tank. Once attached, another several hundred salmon without GPS devices slid into the river through the attached tube.

Video continues with following the salmon quickly sliding down and through the yellow striped tube into the river. Several hundred salmon were released into the river in June 2023. 300 Salmon were released in fall 2019.

“The State of Maine Department of Marine Resources, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries, United States Fish and Wildlife Service and the Penobscot Nation co-manage the species.”

Video of the river ends and transitions to a graphic image slide with photo and text.

The colored photo is on the left with a NPS ranger standing approximately knee deep in the river, releasing a salmon from a large net. He stands bending forward and holding the net open for the fish to swim out easily. Researchers and scientists stand behind the ranger preparing more fish to be released.

A new images appears on the left. This colored photograph shows two researchers carefully passing a large net with a salmon in it to. They are standing on a slope, so the one on the left is slightly higher than the one on the right. The terrain is densely vegetated with brush and trees. The text to the right remains the same and reads, “Abundant runs of salmon feed dozens of species of wild animals. Their bodies carry nutrients from the ocean into the freshwater that fertilize whole ecosystems.”

A new slide appears with a colored photo on the left and a text block to the right, reading, “They are a valued and significant part of Penobscot Nation and other indigenous cultures.” The colored photography shows a man standing approximately knee high in the river and carefully releasing the Atlantic salmon into the Penobscot river. The man is wearing a brown hat, a navy waterproof jacket, and navy waterproof pants. Thick green shrubs are behind him.

A new slide with the same format appears, the colored photo is of a man in olive green waterproof rain gear, slightly hunched over with the hop of his tan hat visible. He is holding a salmon over a holding tank with one hand on its tail and other underneath the length of the salmon, carefully supporting it. The text on the right reads: “Salmon runs in Maine are a fraction of their historic abundance. Many populations are at risk of extinction.”

The photograph changes on the same slide. The colored photo to the left shows a long flexible tube that extends from a large holding tank in the back of a flatbed truck. The long flexible tube extends into the river for salmon to swim into. A team of researchers and rangers help secure and guide the tube in place.

A new slide appears with the same format. The colored photo on the left is an Image of Haskell Rock. Haskell rock is a large 20ft conglomerate pillar in the East Branch of the Penobscot River. The sky is clear and blue with dense green forest on both sides of the river. The text on the right reads, “The streams and waters within Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument offer one of the best chances for survival of endangered Atlantic salmon in Maine.”

The video ends with a large colored NPS Arrowhead centered on the screen with a link: “For more information: www.nps.gov/kaww/learn/nature/atlantic-salmon”

Duration:

2 minutes, 37 seconds

The East Branch of the Penobscot River provides high-quality habitat for the endangered Atlantic Salmon. Preserving the Atlantic salmon habitat within Katahdin Woods and Waters National Monument is vital to the health of the ecosystem. In 2023, the Maine Department of Marine Resources, NOAA, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Penobscot Nation, and National Park Service released thousands of hatchery-spawned Atlantic salmon into the East Branch of the Penobscot River.