In 1990, the Catamaran Brook project, in the Miramichi River watershed, was initiated to study the impacts of forestry on Atlantic salmon.
Public education is an important part of the program.
With support from New Brunswick's Environmental Trust Fund, the Catamaran group has been providing summer tours of the research area to school groups and interested members of the public. Hopefully, the tour program will continue in 1999. Given the current concerns and unknowns related to poor smolt survival, especially in the marine environment, retrieval of data related to smolt production and survival rate has never been more important. It is a simple fact that the survival of smolts from the Miramichi system, the largest naturally producing salmon habitat in the world, is not known. These known numbers can then be tabulated with grilse returns from the same year class next year, and the sea-survival of smolts estimated.