Lake Ontario Atlantic Salmon restoration program

The Atlantic salmon was an important member of the original fish community in Lake Ontario when the first Europeans arrived in southern Ontario in the late 1700s. Atlantic salmon were an abundant natural resource for both native peoples and early settlers. But as the land was logged or cleared for farming, water temperatures and erosion increased. The suitability of spawning and nursery habitat decreased. Access to spawning grounds was blocked, as dams were built for water-powered saw and grist mills. Between fishing pressure and changes on the landscape, once-thriving Atlantic salmon populations disappeared in less than a century. One of the last observations of an Atlantic salmon in Ontario waters was from Wilmot Creek in 1896.


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