LYNXVILLE – Order Atlantic salmon from a restaurant menu or pick out a fillet from a Madison grocery display case and it’s likely the fish was farm-raised in Chile, Scotland or, perhaps, Maine.
And soon, likely Wisconsin.
An artesian spring bubbling from the rock and sand just a mile east of the Mississippi River in Crawford County could help add Wisconsin to the list of salmon sources and help grow the state’s relatively small aquaculture industry that is dominated by trout farms.
Kent Nelson, who owns a Prairie du Chien sawmill with his two brothers, is using the 400 gallons of gin-clear, 52-degree water that flows from his spring each minute year-round to raise an estimated 30,000 Atlantic salmon. His first crop of 2-pound to 2½-pound, 2-year-old fish will be harvested this summer while a new batch of 35,000 eggs will be hatched this spring in Nelson’s small basement hatchery.
To read the rest of the story, please go to: Wisconsin State Journal
