Bald Mountain Artic Charr Project

By Elizabeth Thorndike,
Bald Mountain Pond is an 1,152-acre pond in Bald Mountain Pond Township in Somerset County. It is sixty-five feet deep, has over half a dozen tributaries, and over fourteen miles of boulder and ledge shoreline. There are only three camps on the lake and a fair boat launch best accessed by shallow hulled craft. Bald Mountain Pond hasn’t been stocked since 2007 and has been known to produce large brook trout up to five pounds. A noteworthy quality of Bald Mountain Pond is the presence of landlocked arctic charr. In Maine there are only 14 bodies of water where charr exist; 12 of the 14 waters are considered genetically distinct. The average charr in Bald Mountain range from 6 to 8 inches but can reach upwards to 10 inches.
Recently, there was an illegal introduction of rainbow smelt into Bald Mountain Pond. In most bodies of water, smelt and charr do not coexist due to competition for the same food source and direct predation by smelt on emerging charr sac fry. Unfortunately, charr in some small waters (less than 200 acres) are outcompeted and are often extirpated. In recent history, Maine IF & W has chemically reclaimed two small charr waters with similar situations. However, Bald Mountain Pond is too large and deep to be reclaimed. While we are hopeful that Bald Mountain Pond’s large size and the complex, diverse habitat that it provides will mitigate negative impacts on charr, we nonetheless spent considerable time last fall learning about this specific population. This was a critical first step required for developing specific management strategies to protect these fish.

Charr being implanted with radio tag

Maine IF & W’s ultimate goal is to learn where the charr population in Bald Mountain Pond spawn in case a relocation or a hatchery culture project is required to preserve this unique strain of fish. This is desirable because large numbers of charr typically congregate near very specific sites during their fall spawning season, and we can readily capture them alive with trapnets. To learn where the charr spawn, fisheries biologists began a telemetry project by inserting radio tags into individual charr. Charr were captured by setting short gill net sets into deep water. Once the charr were obtained, theywere surgically implanted with a tag, released, and tracked regularly by boat or plane.

Charr after tag is implanted – note trailing wire

Several complications arose during the project. Charr are difficult to work with after being captured from deep water. Issues associated with a rapid change in temperature and the fish’s inability to quickly adjust their swim bladder caused delays. Ultimately, only four charr were successfully tagged and released. In spite of this, two of these fish lead to possible spawning shoals. In early November divers investigated the shoals, looking for potential spawning substrate or visible signs of charr spawning activity. No signs of spawning were observed, but limited amounts of suitable spawning substrate were located.

Future plans for Bald Mountain Pond call for reattempting to tag additional charr with “delayed start” tags. These tags would give biologists a longer window of time to tag charr under more favorable handling conditions.
Instances of fish introductions have unfortunately become more common in recent years and cause irreversible damage to native ecosystem. For this reason, Maine IF & W strongly urges anglers not to introduce new species into water bodies – and it’s against the law!