Lake Trout

A National Success Story

After decades of work, self-sustaining populations of lake trout are established in Lake Superior. There are signs of improvement in Lake Michigan and Lake Huron but research continues to identify limiting factors affecting full success. With strong support from our partners, the Service remains steadfast in efforts to rehabilitate lake trout in the Great Lakes.

An aggregation of lake trout over a spawning reef. (Courtesy photo by J.
Ellen Marsden and Bret Ladago, University of Vermont)

Recent Accomplishments:

• Maintaining four genetically diverse strains of brood stock and producing millions of eggs for stocking and production programs.
• Stocking over 20 offshore reefs and numerous shore stocking sites with approximately 4.2 million marked yearling lake trout.
• Leading a multi-agency sampling effort to determine the effectiveness of lake trout stocking.
• Marking and coded-wire tagging all federally reared lake trout and recovering data from thousands of coded-wire tags.
• Maintaining the Great Lakes Stocking Database and contributing to stock assessment modeling to establish harvest limits.
• Coordinating with sea lamprey control program efforts and providing written reports on lake trout rehabilitation progress.