SALMON HARVEST

Record-Eagle/Jan-Michael Stump
From left, Glenn Loomis Elementary School students Luke McGarry Costello, 10, kisses a Chinook salmon held by Michigan Department of Natural Resources seasonal interpreter Kevin Perry while classmates Eva Belovich, 11, Evie Rhodes, 9, and Willem DeGood, 9, watch during a trip to watch the salmon harvest at the The Boardman Weir/ James P. Price Trap & Transfer Harvest Facility in Traverse City. The harvest is the second and final one of the season, which saw numbers dramatically lower than in previous years. 185 Chinook salmon were harvest this year, compared to 1,363 last year, while 515 Coho salmon were taken this season after 566 were taken last year. Heather Hettinger, a Michigan DNR fisheries biologist, said that the weir also found and released seven brown trout between four and eight pounds, two steelhead and seven rainbow trout. 20 pairs of salmon from the October 6 harvest were spawned, producing about 80,000 eggs for the Platte River State Fish Hatchery near Honor. Seasonal interpreters at the facility also met with over 10,000 visitors this season, which included 652 tours and 13 school visits.

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