The restoration of cisco (Coregonus artedi) in Lake Huron is a formal management objective of the Lake Huron Committee (LHC) of the Great Lakes Fishery Commission (GLFC) (DesJardine et al., 1995). In recent decades, Lake Huron has undergone significant food web...
Broodstock Collection & Development
Coregonine Captive Broodstock Developed from Wild-Caught Juveniles: Strategies to Increase Survival of Captured Juvenile Coregonines and Exploration of Long-Term Holding and Spawning
Coregonine restoration has largely relied on established hatchery broodstocks, human-facilitated spawning of ripe fish in the field, or leveraging commercial fisheries for gamete collection. These methods can induce unintended consequences such as hybridizations and...
Hatchery production and research to support restoration of sustainable Coregonine populations in Lake Ontario and Lake Erie – Year 8
Coregonine species in the Great Lakes, such as Cisco and Bloaters, historically represented a substantial component of the forage base for native cold-water fish like Lake Trout and Atlantic Salmon. Extirpation or depletion of deepwater Bloater populations has left...
Enhancing Kiyi (Coregonus kiyi) research to support the conservation and restoration of deep-water coregonine diversity in the Laurentian Great Lakes – Year 2
In FY22, we received one year of GLRI funding to explore the feasibility of making and rearing Kiyi or Kiyi-hybrid crosses for the establishment of research stocks at the Little Traverse Bay Band of Odawa Indians (LTBB) Hatchery, Ann Arbor wet lab (AA), and...
Coregonine Captive Broodstock Developed from Wild-Caught Juveniles: Dual Strategies to Mitigate Barotrauma-Induced Mortality
Genetic Monitoring of Bloater Broodstock using a GTSeq (Genotypes by thousands sequencing) Panel
Hatchery production is a central component of coregonine restoration within the Great Lakes ecosystem, and active supplementation programs are currently underway in Lakes Ontario and Huron. As the development of coregonine broodstock lines and methods associated with...
Hatchery production and research to support restoration of sutainable Coregonine populations in Lake Ontario and Lake Erie – Year 7
Coregonine species in the Great Lakes, such as Cisco and Bloaters, historically represented a substantial component of the forage base for native cold-water fish like Lake Trout and Atlantic Salmon. Extirpation or depletion of deepwater Bloater populations has left...
Hatchery production and research to support restoration of sustainable Coregonine populations in Lake Ontario (FY24)
Coregonine species in the Great Lakes, such as Cisco and Bloaters, historically represented a substantial component of the forage base for native cold-water fish like Lake Trout and Atlantic Salmon. Extirpation or depletion of deepwater Bloater populations has left...
Hatchery production and research to support restoration of sustainable Coregonine populations in Lake Ontario (FY23)
This project focuses on the production of Coregonines at the USFWS-ANFH and NEFC hatcheries, working in partnership with USGSTLAS, NYSDEC, OMNRF, and USFS-LOBS to further progress towards fish community goals outlined by the GLFC Lake Ontario Committee (LOC) through...
Developing a high throughput method to genotype coregonines at a standardized panel of loci for genetic monitoring and parentage-based tagging applications
A central component of coregonine restoration in the Great Lakes is hatchery production, and active supplementation programs are underway in Lakes Ontario and Huron. Importantly, these efforts must consider the decades of work in other salmonids that demonstrate...
Examining the potential for unrepresentative sampling during cisco Coregonus artedi gamete collections for the Saginaw Bay restoration effort – Year 2
The cisco Coregonus artedi restoration effort in Saginaw Bay utilizes gametes sourced from northern Lake Huron, in the Les Cheneaux Islands and Drummond Island region (LHTC 2007). Gametes have been collected from bays in the Les Cheneaux area and Whitney Bay (Drummond...
Examining the potential for unrepresentative sampling during cisco Coregonus artedi gamete collections for the Saginaw Bay restoration effort
Great Lakes cisco populations declined during the 19th and 20th centuries due to factors such as overfishing, habitat degradation, and interactions with invasive species (Van Oosten 1930; Crowder 1980; Myers et al. 2009; George 2019). Cisco are now considered...
Region 3 wild coregonine brood stock collection activities for FY 2021 in support of restoration activities on Lake Huron and Lake Ontario
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Midwest Region Fisheries Program carried out two projects in support of a multi-agency effort to restore coregonid populations in Lakes Huron and Ontario. The first project began in 2015 when USFWS began documenting the spawning...
A coordinated approach to monitoring of a coregonine brood and cultured progeny in the R3 FWS hatchery program
Broodstock management and monitoring programs are vital components of all types of stocking initiatives (e.g. Captive, Supportive, restorative, rescue). Broodstock collection and development should aim to preserve genetic diversity and minimize inbreeding and stocking...
Developing a coordinated approach to monitoring of coregonine brood and cultured progeny in the R3 FWS Hatchery Program
Deep-water cisco captive broodstock developed from wild-caught juveniles: proof of concept with Lake Michigan bloater
Hatchery broodstocks (Coregonus artedi and C. hoyi) created via fertilizing eggs with sperm from wild spawning populations or captive brood stock fuel current restoration efforts for ciscoes in the Great Lakes. But, creating these broodstock involves hazards to access...
Enhancing Kiyi (Coregonus kiyi) research to support the conservation and restoration of deep-water coregonine diversity in the Laurentian Great Lakes
The abundance of the deepwater preyfish Kiyi (Coregonus kiyi) in Lake Superior makes it a high-value target for restoring extirpated populations in Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Ontario. Managers from several Great Lakes have informally indicated strong interest in...
Hatchery production and research to support restoration of sustainable coregonine populations in Lake Ontario (FY21, FY22)
This project focuses on the production of Coregonines at the USFWS-ANFH and NEFC hatcheries, working in partnership with USGSTLAS, NYSDEC, OMNRF, and USFS-LOBS to further progress towards fish community goals outlined by the GLFC Lake Ontario Committee (LOC) through contributing to Coregonine reintroduction and restoration. Production requests originate from the LOC and the NYSDEC. Fish health monitoring is a required component of the production program to transfer fish, maintain optimal fish health in culture facilities, and facilitate the restoration of both the natural forage base and the predatory Lake Trout populations in the Great Lakes. Production of bloater (Coregonus hoyi) in FY22 is part of a multi-year restoration effort for Lake Ontario.
Captive coregonid brood stock management facilities at Jordan River National Fish Hatchery
Hatchery production, fish health surveillance, and research to support restoration of sustainable coregonine populations in Lake Ontario (FY20)
Project objectives include: (1) Production of coregonines at the USFWS-ANFH and NEFC hatcheries, working in partnership with USGS-TLAS, NYDEC, MNRF, and USFS LOBS represents progress towards fish community goals outlined by the GLFC Lake Ontario Committee through...
Region 3 wild coregonine brood stock collection activities for FY 2020 in support of restoration activities on Lake Huron and Lake Ontario (2020)
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Midwest Region Fisheries Program carried out two projects in support of a multi-agency effort to restore coregonid populations in Lakes Huron and Ontario. The first project began in 2015 when USFWS began documenting the spawning...
Region 3 wild coregonine broodstock collection activities for FY 2019 in support of restoration activities on Lake Huron and Lake Ontario
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Services Midwest Region Fisheries Program carried out two projects in support of a multi-agency effort to restore coregonid populations in Lake Huron and Lake Ontario. The first project began in 2017 when USFWS started collecting cisco...
