This story neglects to mention that last spring, the Chairman of the Maine Atlantic Salmon Commission, Dick Ruhlin of Brewer, was caught by a game warden holding a salmon out of the water (whence it proceeded to suffocate). This was a violation of the law and Dick Ruhlin knew it was, but he did it anyways. But the game warden was told not to take any action because ... well ... Dick Ruhlin is the Commissioner and the Commissioner is above the law I was standing inside Pat Keliher's office when Pat was on the phone trying to decide what to do about his errant, law breaking Commissioner. Not surprisingly, the entire thing was hushed up by Keliher and the State.

The state looks after their own.

Millions of Atlantic Salmon being raised in the sea-pens for aquaculture, but endangered in the rivers. As long as species can be broken down to the point that they are controlled by their genitics, funds will continue to be dumped into a lost program with nothing to show for. The state needs money and only if the salmon rivers thrived with fish. We need to ditch the current restoration plan and start a new one. After all, how many years can we go before we admit failure?

Outdoorman is correct! Can you remember the mid-1980's when salmon fishermen actually had fish to angle for? Then the feds got heavily involved in salmon management in the late 80's, what happened? Their idea was to stock fry in the headwaters, which was nothing more than a feeding program for bass. Then they started protecting other so called endangered species (shags and seals). How's that's working for salmon restoration! Now they want to put a "pike super-highway" around the Howland Dam that is certain to destroy the upper Piscataquis River (and maybe the West Branch Penobscot). We allow these "experts" to have control over our rivers why?

Forget what you think you think, or what you know you know, that just ain't so. Remove the dams that stop the free flow of the river. Then nature will heal the river and the fish will return. Over time the river will once again become the place to go for boating and fishing and swimming or just enjoying.

I'm always amazed at the selfishness and ignorance of my fellow fisherman. The federal program of habitat restoration and restocking in Maine rivers is the ONLY reason there are any wild salmon left in Maine. If you would bother to read the reports you'd see that the population numbers have increased in all protected rivers since the "feds" got involved. How can people consider themselves outdoorsman and conservationists if they won't even put their interest in catching fish aside for the good of the species. And at this point its about saving a species and an ecosystem, not landing another 50 fish a year. So stop being so selfish! And "penobscotman"...if you knew anything about wildlife you'd realize that no shags or seals are protected within the range of Atlantic salmon habitat.

SPORT FISH? that is exactly why this planet is being depleted of all it's resources. Fish for food....... is not a game!

I don't only read the reports, I write the reports. The salmon under the current plan simply are not coming back and the reports prove so. Aquaculture began in Maine by obtaining eggs from the state from Maine rivers. Now that the rivers are next to dead, a good approach would be for the state to obtain some eggs from aquaculture. The feds on the other hand refuse to move on any such idea claiming the aquaculture fish are too many generations removed from the wild and simply would not have the instinct to survive. Though the genitics are the same, the feds refuse to give it a try, after all it might succeed. It should be realized by all that any time an aquaculture fish escapes it tends to run for the nearest river because they have been trapped in the weirs and caught by anglers since the introduction of aquaculture in the early 1980's. I do not know of a more obvious case in the United States of job security.

All seals and shags certainly are protected in all jurisdiction of Maine's waters.

So there it is again: The oh so predictably worn, tired and never ending battle cry of, “job security” by those who claim to write the reports, yet unwilling to do whatever is necessary in the end to revive Maine’s fisheries.

Don't really want to get into a long discussion about salmon restoration efforts in Maine, because the bottom line is, it's been a complete failure. Look at the numbers. The ESA is nothing more than a power grab by the feds. Hey davem13, do you really think that there are "wild salmon left in Maine"? Only in the imagination of the moonbats maybe. And by the way, shags and seals are certainly protected throughout the US. Back in the day when shags were controlled during the salmon out migraton, some of the salmon smolts actually made it out to sea. If it wasn't so stupid, it would be funny the way they stock salmon with the shags sitting there waiting for the truck to leave.

The last I knew (about 10 years ago, the Ducktrap River in Lincolnville/Northport still had an viable indigenous wild population of Salmon spawning regularly but the numbers of egg masses (Reds I think they are called - or something to that effect) could still be counted on only two hands. That was the resutl foa very rigorous conservation effort and that river has no damns as it is very small and in the middle of "nowhere" as in very limited development in the area and watershed oher than a some old homes, farms and blueberry barrons and then that eyesore of an MBNA/Bank of America Retreat. I am not sure how that conservation effort has done since then but I was told at that time that it was the last truly wild salmon population in Maine so I'm not sure how other wild populations are expectedf to recover if there is no longer any wild spawning in other rivers. To me it would seem wise to artificially locate reds in the ancestral spawning grounds that are now inactive with the hope that between instinctual genetics and birth in the rivers will guide these new populations back to where they hatched. But to rely on wild populations alone may be inadequates as there just is not enough individuals or even genetic diversity to ever self-repopulate what has been lost.

Commissioners breaking the rules.... Shocking! . As far as the comment "they take care of there own", not true, just the properly politically appointed ones! Please recall the Col. of the Warden Service who lost his 24 year career, his professional life and livelihood for 11 short lobsters when he should have been just demoted a couple of ranks. Lobsters are not ENDANGERED and are excellent with drawn butter. Keliher isn't stupid for not seeing Ruhlin busted for it. He is actually practicing better survival instincts than our hatchery raised Atlantic Salmon are themselves.

We call Craig Brook hatchery fish "wild"? We feed shags with these "wild fish". We open good trout water and the legendary West Branch's truly wild Land Locked Salmon water to utter destruction by Pike via the Howland Dam bypass for the reputed sake of these "wild" fish, come on! TU is all for Atlantic Salmon restoration as they should be, but how can they be for this Pike intro into the Piscaty and West Branch for this pie in the sky potential Atlantic Salmon result? And we call all this hypocrisy sound management? Millions of dollars later we are still beating this dead horse and are willing to risk established wild populations in the name of our own willful and foolish assertion that we think we know what we are doing.

Frankly wrote (above):

"Remove the dams that stop the free flow of the river. Then nature will heal the river and the fish will return."

Okay, let's look in the box of facts.

It's a fact that here are NO major dams on any Maine rivers in which salmon are already declared an endangered species. The Narraguagus has a very small ice-control dam above the Stillwater Pool in Cherryfield, but I and others have literally seen salmon swim over it on high water. The authorities are also aware of this and have had various monitoring programs to count the number fish that swim over the dam to add to those that are caught in the trap.

The Dennys River? No dam. East Machias? No dam. Pleasant? No dam.

You get the point.

Those who say "remove the dams and let the salmon swim free" need to look at the examples of where there are no dams—and very few or no salmon. I'm for removing dams (when any loss of power can be balanced in other ways) and restoring rivers, but I'm not deluding myself into believing that the salmon will magically return. Just examine the plight of the salmon rivers from southern Maine to Washington County.