How rare is a blue walleye?
How rare is a blue walleye?
“In all the lakes we have studied with blue walleye, less than half of the walleye present, maybe a quarter or one-fifth of the walleye present in the lake, are blue” he noted.
Is there such thing as a blue walleye?
The blue walleye (Sander vitreus vitreus), also called the blue pike, was a unique color morph (formerly considered a subspecies) of walleye which was endemic to the Great Lakes of North America.
How big is a blue walleye?
A sub-species of walleye (Blue Walleye), that formally inhabited Lake Erie and Ontario is now extinct. Populations of this sub-species are still present in Canada. SIZE: The common length for walleye is around 54 cm (22.3 in) with the maximum reported length being 107 cm (42 in).
Why are some pickerel blue?
Schaefer said the blue coloration is caused by a protein secreted into the mucous. The blue pigment was found in yellow walleye as well as blue walleye from the same lakes. The blue pike were an important commercial species in the early 1900s in Lake Erie, but were extinct by the mid-1950s.
What makes a blue walleye?
Blue walleye retain this colour due to a lack of yellow skin pigment and a blueish protein in the mucus coating on its skin. This protein dubbed “sandercyanin,””sander” coming from the genus of the walleye and “cyanin” being the greek word for blue, does not affect the the health or taste of the fish.
Why did the blue walleye go extinct?
The blue pike has been considered extinct since approximately 1983. The main causes are attributed to uncontrolled commercial fishing and hybridization with walleye.
When was the last blue walleye caught?
The last Blue Walleye to be officially recognized as a Blue Walleye by the MNR was caught in Lake Erie in 1965.
Are blue pike still in Lake Erie?
Blue pike were endemic to Lakes Erie and Ontario, as well as to the Niagara River. The Government of Canada’s Species at Risk Public Registry notes the last blue pike was caught in 1965. In 1975, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service declared the species extinct.
Do blue pike still exist?
The blue pike, considered a subspecies of the walleye, was officially declared extinct in 1975 – the same year that concerned agencies formed a blue pike recovery team. The popular fish was doomed. There were other factors that ultimately added to the demise of the blue pike, too.
Why did the blue pike go extinct?
What happened to the blue walleye?
The Campbell Status Report of 1985 officially declared the Blue Walleye extinct. The last Blue Walleye to be officially recognized as a Blue Walleye by the MNR was caught in Lake Erie in 1965. MNR is an acronym for Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources.
What is a blue walleye?
The blue walleye (Sander vitreus glaucus), erroneously called the blue pike, was a subspecies of the walleye that went extinct in the 1980s. The extinct blue pike ( Stizostedion vitreum glaucum) were often confused with walleyes, of which it was a subspecies.
Are blue pike and walleye the same fish?
After careful analysis of the DNA from our Canadian walleye, Dr. Stepien determined that the fish were not the same subspecies (glaucus) as the extinct blue pike of Lake Erie. In fact they were simply a color variant of regular, run of the mill, walleye (Sander vitreus).
When was the last blue walleye caught in Ontario?
The last Blue Walleye to be officially recognized as a Blue Walleye by the MNR was caught in Lake Erie in 1965. MNR is an acronym for Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources. Back in 1993, I was fishing on Spotted Lake, which is a portage lake off of Esnagami Lake near Nakina, which is a fly-in lake.
Are there blue walleye in Lake Erie?
Occasionally, grey-blue or steel-blue walleye are caught in Lake Erie, Lake Ontario, and the Ohio River drainage. Dark blue yellow perch are also sometimes caught in the same areas. A turquoise -colored walleye exists in some waters of the Canadian Shield.
