Lake Huron’s Chinook salmon fishery will likely never return to its glory days because the lake can no longer support the predatory fish’s main food source, the herring-like alewife, according to a new UM-led computer-modeling study.
The study’s results suggest that Lake Huron resource managers should focus their efforts on restoration of native fish species such as lake trout, walleye, lake whitefish and lake herring.
The findings also suggest that if current trends continue, Lake Michigan will likely experience an alewife collapse similar to Lake Huron’s, followed by the crash of its Chinook salmon fishery there.
