Marking lake trout with coded wire tags and fin clip, shows Mark IV style tagging machine (photo by: Steve Davis USFWS)

Allegheny National Fish Hatchery, Warren Pennsylvania, provided personnel, tagging machines, and their Coded Wire Tagging (CWT) trailer to two national fish hatcheries in Vermont, in an effort to tag lake trout for release into lakes Erie and Ontario.  Tagging operations took place at Pittsford National Fish Hatchery, Chittenden VT and White River National Fish Hatchery, Bethel VT from January through March 2007.

David Blick, Assistant Manager, provided technical support, set up assistance, maintenance support for the trailer and tagging machines, as well as training to the VT crews unfamiliar with the Mark IV coded wire tagging equipment.  The tags are inserted into each lake trout yearling destined for release in the two lower Great Lakes.  Over 590,000 fish were tagged in 2007. 

The CWTs are used by management biologists to assess the success of the stocking program, determine spawning recruitment, compare the contribution of wild spawned fish vs. hatchery produced fish, and to track fish movement.  Tagging of lake trout for this native species restoration effort has been an annual event since 1979.

Allegheny National Fish Hatchery was depopulated of lake trout in November 2005 because of the detection of Infectious Pancreatic Necrosis Virus in multiple strains of lake trout, as well as brook trout.  Until infrastructure improvements are completed at the Warren facility and the fish are returned to the hatchery, lake trout will be produced at the two Vermont hatcheries.