The history of the Atlantic Salmon in Lake Ontario John R. Dymond,1 Hugh H. MacKay,2 Mary E. Burridge,3* Erling Holm,3 and Phillip W. Bird4 1Royal Ontario Museum (died 1965); 2Ontario Department of Lands & Forests (retired 1963); 3Royal Ontario Museum 100 Queen’s Park, Toronto Ontario M5S 2C6; 4Credit Valley Conservation, 1255 Old Derry Road, Mississauga, ON L5N 6R4 Ã Corresponding author:
[email protected] The history of the Atlantic Salmon (Salmo salar), also referred to as Salmon below, in Lake Ontario is an accumulation of authentic published accounts, which were almost completed by J. R. Dymond before his death. H. H. MacKay completed the work on Dymond’s behalf (Dymond and MacKay, unpublished, 1966), but it remained largely unknown. The present authors (MEB, EH, PWB) have sought to present an updated subset of Dymond and MacKay’s work as the history of Lake Ontario Salmon is a crucial story in the history of the Great Lakes and its fisheries. The information provided should add materially to the knowledge of the causes that led to the decline and ultimate extirpation of a fascinating and valuable fish, notwithstanding all the efforts that were made to restore it by artificial means. Keywords: fisheries, life history, over-fishing, mill dams, deforestation, Alewife How freshwater evidence that Lake Ontario was confluent with the Champlain Sea, but isostatic rebound and eastward populations originate forcing of freshwater, facilitated by glacial melt- water input to Lake Ontario, likely prevented salt- The Atlantic Salmon did not arise in Lake water invasion. Hladyniuk and Longstaffe (2016) Ontario because it was prevented from going to found no evidence that the western end of Lake sea; it was not a landlocked population until the Ontario was at any time marine.