JONESBORO — Ernie Atkinson, a fisheries biologist with the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission, dunks a bucket full of thousands of 2-month-old Atlantic salmon, or fry, into the cold, dark blue waters of the East Machias River.

Thousands of Atlantic salmon fry were released in each bucketload, like that shown here, as biologists with the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service stocked the East Machias River and some of its tributaries last Thursday.—STAFF PHOTOS BY NICK GOSLING

The river water rushes into the bucket, sweeping out the tiny brownish fish. With a shake, Atkinson clears away any stragglers.

The fry disappear almost immediately into the riverbed, finding rocks, sticks and small plants to hide among. They’ll stay hidden until dark, said Atkinson, when they’ll reappear and drift down river to the rippled white caps just below the stocking spot.

Of the roughly 6,000 fry Atkinson released, only 10 percent will live to the next life stage, or parr (about 9 months old).

“We can almost count on an instant mortality of 20 to 25 percent,” said Atkinson.

At about 2 years old, the 3-inch-long parr will become smolt as their bodies get ready to transition to saltwater. The silvery smolt will then migrate down river during that spring toward the Atlantic Ocean. Only another 10 percent will reach that smolt stage, said Atkinson.

In four years, when the Atlantic salmon have reached their adult life stage while living in the ocean, 10 percent, or six fish, will have survived and will head back up to spawn in the rivers they were released in.

Dan Tozier, a biology technician at Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery, releases the small, wiggling 2-month-old fry into a stream in Downeast Maine.

For now, though, the small fry will continue to eat the small bits of yellowish yolk sacks hanging from their bellies for the next several days or weeks, until the nutrients are depleted. Then, for the first time, the hatchery-raised salmon will seek out their own food among the streams or rivers, waiting for bugs or other meals to drift by a hiding spot and then darting out to grab it.

Raised in the Craig Brook National Fish Hatchery in Orland, about 3 million fry are released into seven Maine rivers each May — the Penobscot, Sheepscot, Machias, East Machias, Narraguagus, Pleasant and Dennys. About 1.8 million of those fry will be released into the Penobscot River while the rest will be split among the six other rivers.

The fry were spawned last November at Craig Brook and are released into the rivers the hatchery’s brood parents came from.

Over 300,000 fry, the majority of which were released last Thursday, are raised at the hatchery each year for the East Machias River and its tributaries.

Atkinson and three other biologists — Aaron Riddell, a part-time biologist with the Atlantic Salmon Commission, Denise Buckley, assistant hatchery manager at Craig Brook, and Dan Tozier, a biology technician at Craig Brook — are doing their milk run. Like milkmen delivering the morning’s bottle of milk, they are delivering buckets of swimming fry to often rural streams that feed into the East Machias by point-stocking, or stocking the fry at one specific spot along a stream or river.

The point-stocking mimics how the fish would emerge from a salmon nest, called a “red,” in a streambed, said Atkinson, where the fry emanate from one location and then drift down river into a habitat.

Winding down rugged and overgrown gravel roads in backwoods parts of Downeast towns such as Crawford and Wesley, the biologists pilot two pickup trucks, loaded each with four coolers full of thousands of fry apiece, around washouts and over old wooden bridges to remote stocking spots. Many of the spots are visited annually and Atkinson or other biologists scout out the road conditions each year before the stocking trips begin.

The fry have spent several hours in the coolers already during the drive up from the hatchery that morning and the biologists are trying to get them into the streams as soon as possible. The hot day only makes the priority of keeping the cooler water at about 15 degrees Celsius even more important.

At each of the stocking spots the biologists work as a team, pulling out plastic, cube-shaped strainers of fry from each cooler and dumping them into a bucket, which is handed off to another biologist who rushes it down to the water’s edge. There the bucket is dumped, as close to shade and the shallows as possible, and the fry disperse.

The milk run isn’t the only way the fry are stocked. In some instances the biologists canoe down the rivers, stocking from coolers and using small nets to dribble out fry at ideal locations just upstream from small rapids and ripples. This is done to reach parts of the rivers and streams that are inaccessible by vehicle, said Atkinson.

And at least every year a biologist goes overboard in rough waters, flipping a boat and dumping a cooler full of fry into the water.    

The biologists made nine stops last Thursday, releasing 200,000 fry into Northern Stream, Creamer Brook, Barrows Stream and other streams that empty into the East Machias River, as well as the East Machias itself.

For Atkinson, the hope of one day seeing his son fish for Atlantic salmon in Maine rivers and streams keeps him working toward preservation efforts.

“They’re stable,” he said about Atlantic salmon populations. “We seem to have, for the time being, held back the decline any further.”

The programs to restore the Atlantic salmon are beginning to take off, said Atkinson, and during his 15-plus years he’s been working for the commission, he’s seen salmon populations first drop and now begin to rise.

As for why the Atlantic salmon is endangered, Atkinson said there’s not just one reason for that but many factors to consider.

“Some things are out of our control and some things aren’t,” he said.

But for now, efforts like the ones Atkinson and other biologists are taking to painstakingly stock the rivers and streams of eastern Maine is slowly helping Atlantic salmon populations recuperate so that one day the hatcheries, stocking trips and constant salmon surveillance may not be needed.