An Inside Look at Brown Trout’s Examination Tent
ALPENA, MI – While there’s plenty of exciting events taking place at the 48th Annual Brown Trout Festival, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service technicians were standing by to examine certain fish caught.
The biological science technicians record and collect data samples of each salmon and trout that is hooked at Brown Trout. Technician, Sarah Mansfield, explains what they’re looking for. “We’re checking them to see if they have any fin clips and if they do, we’re marking all the data off of that,” she said. “We’re also taking different biological data on the fish.”
The conservation program began in 2010 and is located in Green Bay, Wisconsin. The main goal of the program is tagging and recovering fish, but they also collect data from the fish caught. Additionally, the process tells the technicians even more information about the fish. “We can determine where they were staffed, the year class of the fish, different genetic strains,” Mansfield said. “We can determine migration patterns of the fish and stocking sites that are better than others.”
This is only the program’s second year at the Brown Trout Festival, but on day one, they typically examine hundreds of salmon and trout. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife staff will be at the tent throughout the Brown Trout Festival this week.
