Michigan DNR staff traveled to Alaska to bring Arctic grayling home

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A handful of Michigan Department of Natural Resources, Fisheries Division staff traveled to Fairbanks, Alaska from May 1-9 to participate in and document the Alaska Department of Fish & Game’s annual Arctic grayling egg-take and spawning effort.

Michigan staff saw first-hand how the egg-take process works, which will come in handy as the state’s broodstock population becomes developed. A key skill shared was learning to sort green fish from ripe fish and noticing the differences between males and females.

Of all the eggs collected during the May trip, approximately 10,000 made their way back to Michigan courtesy of Michigan State University Ph.D. student Nicole Watson. Nicole will use the eggs and juvenile fish to continue her Arctic grayling early life history imprinting, predation and competition study. A portion of her research fish will be sent to Oden State Fish Hatchery in Alanson in late summer 2019 to be held in isolation for a period before they travel to Marquette State Fish Hatchery, where the state’s broodstock population will reside.