MARQUETTE, Mich. — The Michigan Department of Natural Resources is rolling genetic parentage tests into walleye stocking checks statewide after a Upper Peninsula pilot showed the multimillion-dollar program can succeed in one lake and barely register in others.
Biologists briefed the Natural Resources Commission in Marquette this week on parentage-based tagging, which matches DNA from broodstock parents to fin clips later taken from fish in the wild. Samples go to a Michigan State University lab. The approach avoids killing fish to read chemical ear-bone marks and skips physical tags that anglers often lose or never report.
Fish rearing and stocking took more than $11 million in the 2024-25 fiscal year, about a third of the division budget. Traditional oxytetracycline marking required veterinary prescriptions, six-hour monitored baths, and extra hatchery tank space; genetic clips from parents cut that workload.
In the pilot covering Dickinson and Iron county waters, 24 of 25 walleye checked in Lake Emily matched stocked parent lines. At Hagerman Lake only 2 of 147 fish matched recent stocking parents, and Lake Ottawa showed 2 of 34. Further genetics linked Hagerman fish to Lake Gogebic strains used in 1980s plants, not to the Little Bay de Noc broodstock used more recently.
Managers say they will not keep stocking Hagerman under the recent recipe. For the coming fiscal year the DNR plans about 500 genetic samples of stocked walleye from waters across the state to guide where plants continue. Officials also flagged expanding the method to other species later.
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