Lake Huron salmon stocking to be cut

TRAVERSE CITY, Mich. (AP) - Michigan plans a sharp cutback in stocking Chinook salmon in Lake Huron next year, further evidence of the collapse of the lake's salmon fishery.

The state Department of Natural Resources said Friday it will place 693,000 spring Chinook fingerlings in Lake Huron in 2012. That's down from the nearly 1.5 million fed into the lake this year.

Acting DNR fisheries chief Jim Dexter says recreational harvest of Chinook has all but disappeared in the southern two-thirds of Lake Huron. The lake's only productive recreational fishery is in the northern section, where salmon are proving able to reproduce on their own.

Fish biologists blame Lake Huron's Chinook drop-off on the unraveling of the food chain likely caused by invasive species of mussels that gobbled up plankton needed by forage fish.