“The salmon weren’t put here to feed people,” said Great Lakes fishery historian Kristin M. Szylvian, “as much as to amuse them.” The salmon were basically declared off-limits to commercial fishermen and, therefore, off-limits to grocery shoppers or restaurant diners. They became the property of the sportsmen who bought the fishing licenses that funded the salmon-planting program, a program that would prove to be a boon for tourism but also, ultimately, an obstacle in efforts to restore some semblance of natural order to the lakes in the decades after the lamprey infestation.
