Great Lakes Ship­yard has been award­ed a con­tract by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice, an agency of the Depart­ment of the Inte­ri­or, for the five-year dry­dock­ing and inspec­tion of the R/V SPENCER F. BAIRD.

The Ship­yard hauled out the R/V SPENCER F. BAIRD using the 770-ton Marine Trav­elift. Work includes dry­dock­ing, a com­plete exte­ri­or repaint­ing, bow thruster replace­ment, its five-year sur­vey, and oth­er mis­cel­la­neous repairs. The project is to be com­plet­ed ear­ly November.

Oper­at­ed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice, the 95-foot BAIRD is a fish stock­ing and pop­u­la­tion assess­ment ves­sel that will annu­al­ly stock near­ly 4 mil­lion lake trout into lakes Huron and Michi­gan, fur­ther­ing a four-decade effort by the Ser­vice and its part­ners to restore deplet­ed lake trout pop­u­la­tions in the Great Lakes and estab­lish self-sus­tain­ing pop­u­la­tions of this native fish, which was near­ly wiped out in the late 1950s due to inva­sion of sea lam­preys, over­fish­ing and pollution.

Of some 90 sci­ence ves­sels on the Great Lakes, the R/V SPENCER F. BAIRD is the only hatch­ery fish dis­tri­b­u­tion ves­sel in oper­a­tion, dis­trib­ut­ing fish reared at the Fish and Wildlife Ser­vice’s Iron Riv­er Nation­al Fish Hatch­ery in Wis­con­sin and Pendills Creek and Jor­dan Riv­er nation­al fish hatch­eries in Michigan.