Michigan will DNA-test stocked walleye after a split U.P. pilot

Michigan is using parentage-based genetic tagging to see whether stocked fish are the ones anglers later catch. Senior fisheries management biologist Jen Johnson told the Natural Resources Commission, meeting in Marquette, to think of the test the way people use Ancestry.com or 23andMe: the question is whether a fish is related to known parents. The department spends about a third of its annual budget on rearing and stocking, more than $11 million in fiscal year 2024-25.

Biologists take DNA from the parent fish, because the young are too fragile to handle, and later send tissue from caught fish to a Michigan State University lab. A 2024-2025 walleye pilot in Dickinson and Iron counties did not read the same way in every lake. At Lake Emily, 24 of 25 fish were related to stocked families. Hagerman Lake produced 2 relatives out of 147 fish. Lake Ottawa produced 2 of 34.

Hagerman’s walleye did not match the Little Bay de Noc broodstock used in recent plants. They did match Lake Gogebic fish, the source of stockings that took there in the 1980s. DNR will stop stocking Hagerman Lake. Next fiscal year the department plans to genetically test 500 samples of stocked walleye statewide. Fisheries Chief Randy Claramunt said he would like all 20 million fish the state stocks to be tagged, and the method may later extend to other species.

This is a The Gillnet news desk summary, not a reprint.

Source: EUP News — Michigan DNR to track fish stocking with genetic testing (Oct. 15, 2026).