A coaster brook trout is injected with the colored marking. - USFWS photo

Green mark

Red mark

During the first week of March 2006, coaster brook trout yearlings destined for Whittlesey Creek were implanted with Northwest Marine Technology, Inc. Visual Implant Elastomer (VIE) tags.  VIE tags are implanted beneath transparent tissues but remain externally visible.  VIE is a biocompatible, two part material that is mixed before use and then injected as a liquid that cures to a pliable solid.   VIE technology has been around for many years, but had not yet been used at the Iron River National Fish Hatchery. 

Staff from the Whittlesey Creek National Wildlife Refuge, and the Ashland Fishery Resources Office joined Iron River National Fish Hatchery staff to learn and then participate in the process.  A total of 2,200 coaster brook trout were tagged.  This included 1,100 Tobin Harbor strain which received red tags and 1,100 Siskiwit strain which received green tags.  All of the tagged yearling brook trout will be stocked into Whittlesey Creek this spring as part of an ongoing fish evaluation.  We are hopeful that the tags will help biologists easily recognize these fish as coming from the Iron River National Fish Hatchery, and since we were able to use a unique color tag for each strain of fish, there will be no need to do an expensive genetic analysis to determine the strain of fish captured.  In addition, the strain determination will be immediate which will hopefully save time in the field.

We will continue to work with the Whittlesey Creek NWR and the Ashland FRO to evaluate the retention success of the VIE tags in coaster brook trout, and are hopeful that we will be able to use them in other evaluations in the future.