With evidence piling up that what is good for native lake trout (no alewives) is bad for salmon (which are alewife-dependent), and vice versa, the states and federal government are trying to strike a dicey balance to keep sportsmen happy and lake trout on the road to recovery. “The idea is that you keep enough alewives so you have a chinook fishery but not so many that you don’t have natural lake trout reproduction. Well, that’s a razor-thin line,” said Dale Hanson, a biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service working to restore Lake Michigan’s lake trout.
