Biologist and Assistant Hatchery Manager Denise Buckley and Biology Technician Dan Tozier (above) inject oxygen into the female salmon to release her eggs.

Those attending learned how salmon are bred at the hatchery as well as the importance of organizations partnering to find methods to preserve the Atlantic salmon.

The Spawning Spectacular used to be an annual event at the hatchery, but it was not held last year due to low attendance in 2004.

The male salmon’s sperm is then squeezed onto the eggs, which are fertilized instantaneously.

“I am very, very pleased at the turnout,” said Peter Steenstra, education outreach coordinator at Craig Brook. “This surpasses all the other Spawning Spectaculars we’ve had.”

Steenstra said one addition the hatchery made to the event this year was to invite 27 different organizations involved in salmon preservation to demonstrate the importance of partnerships in preservation efforts.

Protecting and monitoring watersheds is typically done by organizations and people within them, Steenstra said. At times, he said, these groups or individuals forget they are part of a much larger conglomerate with the same goals.

At events like Sunday’s, the groups are brought together and they realize it’s not just one person or a small group, but rather an army of people involved in salmon preservation, said Steenstra.

Ron Newcomb demonstrates tying fly fishing flies at the Craig Brook Atlantic Salmon Museum for Cub Scouts in Bucksport Pack 26. — STAFF PHOTOS BY NICK GOSLING

The Union River Watershed Coalition was just one of the 27 organizations at the event. The coalition, headquartered in Bar Harbor, does community and school outreach for preserving and protecting the Union River Watershed.

Though Atlantic salmon don’t live or breed in the Union River because of the dam in Ellsworth, some salmon are released above the dam every year. Volunteers with the coalition still monitor the water quality in the river and compile data, said coalition member and College of the Atlantic student Jasmine Smith, who added that the Union River is still a valuable resource for salmon research.

“I think there are so many unknowns,” said Smith when asked why the Atlantic salmon are endangered. “And any of these watershed coalitions can contribute.”

Spawning demonstrations were held near the Alamoosook Lake waterfront. Biologists from the hatchery began the spawning process by anesthetizing the 2½-foot-long male and female salmon. Then the female’s eggs were squeezed out of the fish’s body and into a bowl by injecting oxygen into the female salmon, causing the majority of the eggs to slide out. Any remaining eggs are coaxed out of the female using a gloved hand.

A typical female salmon will produce about 8,000 eggs per year, said Biology Technician Dan Tozier.

After the eggs had been squeezed from the female, semen from the male salmon was squeezed from the fish onto the eggs and then mixed into the bowl.

Fertilization is instantaneous, said Denise Buckley, biologist and assistant hatchery manager at Craig Brook. The eggs are allowed to sit for a few minutes to make sure they are all fertilized and then washed with water to get any excess liquids off them. Afterward, the eggs are sterilized in an iodine solution for a half-hour.

About 2.5 million eggs from Penobscot River salmon and 2.5 million to 3.5 million eggs from salmon from the Sheepscot, Machias, East Machias, Narraguagus, Pleasant and Dennys rivers are fertilized at the hatchery. After the eggs are sterilized, the majority of them are placed into incubation trays at Craig Brook while about 1.2 million eggs, from salmon from the Penobscot and Dennys rivers, are sent to the Green Lake National Fish Hatchery in Ellsworth to incubate. In about 90 days, the eggs will hatch, depending on the water temperature, and the hatchlings are then moved to larger tanks where they will grow until next spring.

In the spring, the Craig Brook hatchlings will be released into the rivers that their parents came from.

The Penobscot Salmon Club was another organization at the event. The club, located in Brewer, is one of the oldest fishing clubs in the country and dates back to the 1880s, said acting historian Roger D’Errico. The fishing club helps in the preservation efforts by raising money to purchase dams and have them taken down. The club has helped to purchase dams on the Penobscot River in Veazie, Eddington and other towns and cities along the river, said D’Errico.

This fall was the first year that the salmon fishing season has been open since 1999. A limited season was held between Sept. 15 and Oct. 15 of this year, said D’Errico, but fishermen couldn’t kill the salmon or even take them out of the water. Even with a salmon season, the number of Atlantic salmon that fishermen caught was minimal, said D’Errico.

“I’m hoping they’ll come back for another season,” he said.

Students, Boy Scout troops and Cub Scout packs were at the event, representing the next generation of salmon preservationists. A group of home-school students from the Lubec area had a display at the event. The students had participated in a statewide program called Salmon in Schools where salmon eggs are distributed to schools. Students raise the salmon eggs through the fall and winter and release the hatchling salmon into rivers in the spring.

The home-schooled students kept about 180 salmon hatchlings in a tank at the Cobscook Community Learning Center in Lubec and monitored them on a weekly basis. In the process of raising the salmon, they learned about watershed ecology and dynamics and salmon life spans and habitats.

“I learned a lot more about salmon and river conservation,” said home-schooled student Paul Jams. “I didn’t know much about what a watershed was.”