Lake trout
From BWCAWiki
Lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) is a freshwater char.
Lake trout are dependent on cold, oxygen-rich waters. They are pelagic during the period of summer stratification in dimictic lakes.
The lake trout is a slowly growing fish, typical of oligotrophic waters. It is also very late to mature. Populations are extremely susceptible to overexploitation.
From a zoogeographical perspective, lake trout are quite rare. They are native only to the northern parts of North America, principally Canada but also Alaska and, to some extent, the northeastern United States. In Canada, approximately 25% of the world's lake trout lakes are found in the province of Ontario. Even at that, only 1% of Ontario's lakes contain lake trout.
Lake trout have been known, very rarely, to hybridise in nature with the brook trout but such hybrids are almost invariably reproductively sterile. Hybrids are also artificially produced in hatchery|hatcheries and are planted into lakes in an effort to provide sport fishing opportunities.
The BWCAW contains the the greatest concentration of native lake trout lakes in the Lower 48 States. Approximately 100 lakes within, and immediately adjacent to, the BWCAW contain lake trout. Several additional lakes historically contained lake trout, but several factors, such as walleye introductions (in Cook County) and excessive angler harvest, likely caused their extirpation.
External links
Parts of this article are originally from WikipediA, The Free Encyclopedia.
