Deepwater Cisco Stocking Off the USGS Research Vessel KAHO

The USGS Tunison Lab of Aquatic Science (Cortland, NY) and the USGS Lake Ontario Biological Station (Oswego, NY), which are both part of the USGS Great Lakes Science Center, collaborated each year from 2012-2014 in the release of deepwater cisco ("bloater") off of the USGS research vessel KAHO in the Lake Ontario waters off of Oswego, New York, in late fall. Last observed in the wild in the mid-1980s, bloater was a critical native component to the Lake Ontario deepwater fish community, providing healthy prey fish to lake trout and integrating energy transfer from the lake's deep waters to its surface. This stocking is part of an effort to restore the species to Lake Ontario. The project is funded by the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. This video clip is a five-minute underwater filming of the event.