A one-day conference on the status of the chinook salmon fishery in Lake Michigan will take place on Saturday, April 9, on the campus of Lake Michigan College in Benton Harbor. The Michigan Department of Natural Resources, along with its counterparts from the states of Indiana, Illinois and Wisconsin will participate, along with the Chippewa-Ottawa Treaty Fishery Management Authority and the Great Lakes Fishery Commission.

The public is welcome at the conference, which will begin at 8:30 a.m. in the Blue Lecture Hall at the Napier Avenue Campus of Lake Michigan College located at 2755 E. Napier Avenue in Benton Harbor.

"The Michigan DNR is pleased to be partnering with Michigan Sea Grant to host this conference," said Jim Dexter, Lake Michigan basin coordinator. "Top fisheries experts from the Great Lakes region will be discussing the sport fishery and forage base dynamics since the chinook salmon stocking reduction was instituted by the four state fisheries management agencies in 1999."

Selected topics will address stocking decisions, past and future; the health and status of chinook salmon; prey fish dynamics; a review of lake-wide creel survey results; non-management agency perceptions of the Lake Michigan stocking reduction and the immediate future of salmon management in the lake.

Conference registration is $5. Registration is being coordinated through Michigan Sea Grant and Ottawa County MSU Extension. Refreshments and a box lunch will be served. For more information, please contact Chuck Pistis at (616) 846-8250, or see the conference registration form on the DNR Web site