Blueback Trout

Ted

Isn't the intent to protect actual wild native fish stocks? Why would anyone want to include hatchery influenced fish stocks?
Here is something to ruminate over! There are members of the fly fishing guide community in Maine that offer guided trips targeting these wild native char! For a bit it was in the open but now it isn't advertised. It is being done shrewdly on the QT. Now that makes my stomach turn. How about you? There is no end in sight to the gluttony and exploitation found in our fly fishing guide community. Why are you not speaking out against what is happening in our sport?

I can’t follow your question. What difference does it make if hatchery-influenced fish stocks occur or occurred in blueback (arctic char) water? The competition would be unfortunate, of course. But there is no hybridization in New England save with lake trout. Char were wiped out by stocked lake trout New Hampshire and Vermont. I’ll grant that hybridization has occurred between brookies and landlocked char in Idaho where both species are alien. And it apparently has occurred in Labrador. If it naturally occurred in Maine the char have long since been genetically swamped. It does not occur in the char waters we have left. Landlocked char and brook trout can spawn together only in extremely rare circumstances where there is upwelling of groundwater. I know some of the guides who have targeted bluebacks. I don’t have a problem with this because they are excellent conservationists and very careful to release the fish. It is perfectly legal, and I certainly don’t consider it “gluttony and exploitation.” I would, however, advocate no fishing regs (not even barbless no-kill) for bluebacks. And I certainly don’t agree with the Maine Department of Tourism’s current effort to get people to come to Maine to fish for bluebacks. Finally, these fish are endangered in fact, if not fiat. Someone from Maine needs to petition them for ESA listing.
Best,
Ted

Ted

In my opinion all fishing for wild native char should be stopped. Even the most careful C&R angler has a negative impact on fish survival. The impact of C&R is unacceptable in a population of fish tittering on extinction. Here we have a fish believed by many to need ESA protection and people are allowed to C&R them! That is nonsense. All angling for native wild char should be stopped. Every one of those bodies of water should be completely closed to all angling.

"Landlocked char and brook trout can spawn together only in extremely rare circumstances where there is upwelling of groundwater."

I recall hearing the same type of argument used by splake advocates! It is baloney!

What is it with Maine!!!!! There is a prominent fly fishing outdoor writer who in his articles promotes the fishing of summer confined wild brook trout from spring holes in ponds and guides and outfitters that can't wait to make a buck exploiting the last remaining wild char populations in New England! What is going on there Ted? Is DEET altering normal brain activity?

Well, it’s true that landlocked char in Maine and brook trout (stocked or wild) don’t hybridize and probably never did in recorded history. That’s not an argument for superimposing hatchery brook trout on native char. It’s an argument for NOT delisting heritage waters just because brook trout might have been stocked in the past. As I mentioned in my last comment to you, I certainly agree that all landlocked char should be protected from all angling, even no-kill.
Best,
Ted

I appreciate your view on Heritage brook trout. I differ with you only in that un-corrupted populations should be listed as Heritage brook trout or the purpose of the Heritage listing is compromised. We are stepping on a slippery slope if we compromise the intent of the Heritage listing. It is foolish to neglect to cross all the T's and dot all the I's. The listing is certain to come under attack if hatchery compromised populations are listed. Why risk true wild native populations by including hatchery compromised populations. Opponents to the Heritage listing will use them to paint the entire Heritage listing as a fraudulent, feel good, environmental whacko, tree hugging attempt by fly fishing elitists to steel the resource for themselves. Honesty is important.

Well, yeah. If a native brook-trout pond has been polluted with hatchery genes it shouldn’t be on the list. But I think that all blueback water should be heritage water even if brook trout have been stocked. Maybe there should be a different and separate classification. And at the very least those waters should be closed to targeting bluebacks. Maybe floating lines and non-weighted flies only? Could you and a Maine group (TU? Natural Resources Council of Maine?) petition for endangered status? I can’t be part of it because I live in Mass. and it would set the trogs into full cry. Now that Dubya’s vacating the White House there’s a good chance we could get bluebacks listed.
Best,
Ted

Ted

I am in a similar situation as I too am a PFA. That being said, I am not sure ESA is always the answer to every fish issue we face. It is my understanding that Blue Back Trout we historically an important food source for the historically large brook trout Maine was famous for. Please correct me if I am wrong on this point.
Do you suppose an effort to reintroduce Blue Back Trout to waters it currently no longer exists could once again boost the size of brook trout? Could ESA listing prevent or enhance hatchery rearing of Blue Back Trout for the purpose of growing brook trout?

Excellent question, for which thanks! (Remind me what “PFA” means. Groolspeak of some kind, I imagine. I saw this used on “As Maine Goes” or maybe “Tom Remington’s comment boxes” by one of those intellectually disadvantaged, semi-literate, anti-flyfishing, anti-environmental, anti-ESA, attention-starved web chatterers known in your state as “grools.”) I certainly agree that ESA is not always or even usually the answer to fish problems. But in this case it’s the only one I can see, given the politicization and torpor or MDIFW. You are correct about bluebacks being an important food source for brook trout. In the Rangeley Lakes they were the forage base for the huge humpbacked strain of brook trout that attained weights of ten pounds and more. Bluebacks were extirpated from the Rangeleys when the state stocked smelt which ate the blueback fry and competed with bluebacks for plankton. With smelt and other fish alien to important brook trout waters now so widespread, I doubt that bluebacks can ever attain their former niche. However, we can save them where they currently exist, if we can get them listed. And perhaps we can even recover them in places like Big Reed Pond by killing off the introduced smelts with rotenone. ESA listing would facilitate hatchery rearing of bluebacks, just as it facilitated hatchery rearing of Gila trout, Apache trout, and sundry imperiled races of cutts such as greenbacks, Rio Grandes, Westslopes, Paiutes, and goldens.
Best,
Ted

"However, we can save them where they currently exist, if we can get them listed. And perhaps we can even recover them in places like Big Reed Pond by killing off the introduced smelts with rotenone."

Ted the idea that there could be reclamation of a former brook trout/blue back trout lake is some of the best news I have seen come out of Maine in some time!

I don't know if Big Reed Lake is part of a chain of lakes or not. Is there smelt movement between lakes? If it is an isolated lake, smelt could be eradicated from the lake. Now that would be dynamite! I would love to see blue backs re-introduced and Maine home to whopper brook trout once again! If it takes ESA to accomplish this I am on board.

PFA! I forgot you asked. I am not all together sure but I suspect it means folks that don't share in the local mind set.

Big Reed is isolated, and reclamation is possible. And, while Maine can indeed produce big brook trout again, bluebacks aren’t gonna help. There aren’t that many ponds where the smelt, perch, bass, pike, pickerel, suckers, golden shiners and other aliens can be removed. Despite MDIFW’s failings to properly protect bluebacks and to stand up to troglodytes who call for 19th century predator control, I should note that the agency and its brook trout biologist, Forrest Bonney, deserve kudus for implementing some very tough brook trout regs. On some ponds the limit is one fish over 18 inches, and since most of these ponds never produced an 18-incher, it’s essentially C&R (deemed by many Mainers as a YUPPY notion from away). On these ponds the recovery of big trout has been remarkable. The meat hunters go elsewhere. I know a warden who fishes a one-fish-only pond for an hour after work during the damselfly hatch; and he often catches half a dozen good fish. Before the new regs the pond was dead. That said, Maine needs to do MUCH more to protect and recover its unique brook-trout resource. Banning the use of baitfish on waters where brook trout reproduce would be a logical first step. Alas, it stubbornly resists.

An amusing thought just came to me! Sit down and think about this before boxing my ears.
Provided you are correct that Big Reed Pond is a closed system, perhaps the "grools" would support a blue back trout recovery program if you used splake to clean the pond of smelts instead of chemicals which do not have a good record of doing the job in large bodies of water in the first place. Besides, many people just don't like the idea of chemicals in the water even those which are benign as is rotenone. Just food for thought Ted.
Catch up with you later! I am headed for the bomb shelter!

Not sure why you think I might box your ears or why I or anyone should care what the grools support or don’t support since there are no more than a dozen of them and they talk only to themselves. As I’ve written so often on this blog, in FR&R, Audubon and other magazines, people who “just don’t like the idea of chemicals” (EG: leadership of Wilderness Watch and Adirondack Council) are ecological illiterates who need to open their ears, eyes and minds. Without piscicides and herbicides it’s all over. Invasive exotics win, and we can kiss native ecosystems goodbye. Piscicides are the ONLY tool we have for recovering imperiled fishes. (Electro-shocking works only in the tiniest of streams and is horribly labor intensive.) No predator--even a Frankenstein fish like splake--can ELIMINATE prey. Nature doesn’t work that way. It’s true that splake are so predacious that they are used to control brook trout in the West in ponds where they have overpopulated and stunted. That’s the only good use of them I’ve heard about.
Best,
Ted

Actually, the grools appear to have thinned out and run dry of bile. Not much left to say after trashing and re-trashing fly fishers, catch-and-release advocates, environmentalists, and PFAs (which, FYI, stands for “progressive fisheries advocates”). They are hearing from (though I doubt listening to) at least 2 thoughtful posters. One, a newcomer and an expert on alewives, has been attempting to dispel their BS about alewives (native to Maine) threatening bass (alien to Maine) and another (a long-time poster) finds it “curious” that the environmental movement is held in “such low esteem” on the forum. He goes on to write, in part: “Nobody's idiotic enough to be totally unconcerned with the quality of their air & water, are they?” [Well, yes they are, if they’re grools.] Finally, he remarks on the sick, sad “irony” of a hunting and fishing site being “anti-environmental.” Amen.

Ted

Boy you got that right about hose who flip out over the use of pesticides! Obviously there are some chemicals we don't want in the environment but rotenone isn't really one of them. The reason I suggested using splake is I thought that Big Reed Pond was a Heritage brook tout pond. If so I doubted anyone would want to kill every species of fish in the pond. I guess I was wrong. Are you sure Big Reed Pond is not on the Heritage list?

To me, heritage status is all the more reason to rescue native brook trout ponds from alien invaders such as smelt and golden shiners. The great thing about chemical reclamation is that unique strains, races and species can be evacuated and held in hatcheries until after treatment. Of course, we would not want to lose Big Reed’s strain of brookies, nor would we have to. We may have already lost its strain of bluebacks (which to me are far, far more important). But it might not be too late for them either. I believe the last survey turned up two.
Best,
Ted

Ted

That is an interesting idea BUT do you trust that trap, truck, hold, load, truck and dump will not put the fish at un-do risk? What if the fish do not adapt to hatchery conditions? What if the fish pick up hatchery based disease? How would we ever explain the loss of an entire strain of fish with such a move? Heck more than once hatchery truck have had break downs and fish were dumped at the first piece of water simply to unload them! There must be a safer way to handle the situation.

Any risk is better than extirpation, a certain fate for Big Reed’s bluebacks if, in fact, they still exist. If they’re gone, bluebacks could be transferred from other water. No good data exists, but I doubt that the genetic divergence between Maine’s few blueback populations is as great as that between pond-specific stocks of brook trout in the 305 heritage ponds. And, even if there is significant genetic divergence, Big Reed is an important blueback sanctuary that should be utilized. I wish there were “a safer way to handle the situation.” But, believe me, there isn’t. All fish evacuations are risky, though not so risky as you might suppose. And for Big Reed’s brookies the risk is very low because, even if there were a hatchery truck failure, there are enough of them left to keep the strain going. (They wouldn’t all go in one truck or one hatchery raceway.) Look at what was done with greenback cutts functionally extinct, believed extinct, and rediscovered but Behnke. They were evacuated, held in hatcheries, then re-introduced to native streams in Rocky Mountain National Park. Today they’re essentially recovered. This is one of the greatest success stories of the ESA. It’s not a question of fish “adapting to hatchery conditions” because the fish are held for just a few days. All reclamations risk not killing all the aliens; in fact, more than half fail the first time around. Species like perch and suckers often find sanctuary in shallow marshes. I think smelt, which are more pelagic, would be more vulnerable to rotenone or antimycin.
Best,
Ted

Hi Ted. George Smith from SAM here. Disappointed you have not heard about the effort I am making on bluebacks. I objected to taking three waters off the Heritage List, as DIF&W asked, but I did not win that one. I am having better luck stopping DIF&W's move to sidestep legislative approval for "restoration" projects on Heritage Waters. That is still being discussed at the legislature. After a lot of effort, they captured only four bluebacks in Big Reed, Igor Sikorsky flew them to a hatchery, but no viable eggs were produced. They probably have lost bluebacks in Big Reed. I know we differ on hunting issues, but I would appreciate recognition of the outstanding work SAM is doing to protect and enhance native fisheries. Thanks - george

The real shame of blueback extirpation in Big Reed is that DIF&W has been aware of the problem for over fifteen years, yet did nothing. If this last minute futile effort had been started five years ago plenty of bluebacks would have been captured. Now DIF&W has removed Black, Rainbow, and Floods from the Heritage waters, without good cause. Has DIF&W ever revealed the fact that Rainbow has also been illegally stocked with smelt and smelt are now in Floods as well? What a mess.

Ted

I am trying to imagine how this would work. I am not a Maine resident and have never been to Big Reed Pond. I don’t know the lay out etc.
Let me get this right. First of all Big Reed Pond brook trout would be captured and trucked to a secure hatchery holding facilities? Then the application of pesticide would be done followed by reintroduction of the Big Reed Pond brook trout? Do I have the basic idea correct?

How are the brook trout to be captured and who is going to do it?
How many brook trout from the Big Reed Pond strain are necessary to repopulate Big Reed Pond?

Is Big Reed Pond accessible by hatchery truck?

How would pesticide be applied and by whom?

Will aircraft be necessary to move fish and administer the pesticide?

What is the distance between Big Reed Pond and the nearest hatchery?

Are the dead fish removed or allowed to decay before the Big Reed Pond brook trout are returned from their hatchery holding facility?

Only two char were captured????? At this point is the Big Reed Pond char strain a consideration in the reclamation of Big Reed Pond?

Is there something that can be done immediately to help control the smelts like commercially harvesting them for example?

Splake have been used clear smelts from Maine brook trout ponds in the past with success; are you sure you don’t want to use them in this situation in conjunction with commercial harvest of smelts?

Please forgive me for asking all these questions.
I only mention this because ESA listing may take a great deal of time if listing is accomplished at all. The option I have presented may work at a reasonable cost in a timely manner, perhaps begin this season.

“The real shame…” A mess indeed. That’s why we need federal protection. ESA listing would bring in a lot of funding to do the management that needs to be done.
Best,
Ted

“Let me get this right. First of all Big Reed Pond brook trout would be captured and trucked to a secure hatchery holding facilities? Then the application of pesticide would be done followed by reintroduction of the Big Reed Pond brook trout? Do I have the basic idea correct?” (Bingo).
“How are the brook trout to be captured and who is going to do it?” State (or feds if we get ESA listing) would use fake nets.

“How many brook trout from the Big Reed Pond strain are necessary to repopulate Big Reed Pond?” (Can’t give you a definite number. I imagine they would restock adults and hold a few in hope of getting at least one generation of fry.)
“Is Big Reed Pond accessible by hatchery truck?” (Dunno. But the truck doesn’t have to get right to the pond. Fish could be carried in buckets.)
“How would pesticide be applied and by whom?” (Boats. By state or feds.)

“Will aircraft be necessary to move fish and administer the pesticide?” (Dunno. In some ponds in the Adirondacks helicopters are used. Doesn’t matter how it gets there.)

“What is the distance between Big Reed Pond and the nearest hatchery?” (Dunno. But it doesn’t matter.)
“Are the dead fish removed or allowed to decay before the Big Reed Pond brook trout are returned from their hatchery holding facility?” (Generally, the floaters are removed.)
“Only two char were captured????? At this point is the Big Reed Pond char strain a consideration in the reclamation of Big Reed Pond?” (Yes. Certainly a consideration. Whether they’re there or not is the question.)
“Is there something that can be done immediately to help control the smelts like commercially harvesting them for example?” (Alas, no.)
“Splake have been used clear smelts from Maine brook trout ponds in the past with success; are you sure you don’t want to use them in this situation in conjunction with commercial harvest of smelts?” (No. Splake have never cleared a pond. They have depressed forage fish like smelt. With invasive aliens 20 fish is no better than 200,000 fish. It’s like leaving just a little flame in a barn full of hay.)
“Please forgive me for asking all these questions.” (Thanks for asking them. They’re good questions.)
“I only mention this because ESA listing may take a great deal of time if listing is accomplished at all. The option I have presented may work at a reasonable cost in a timely manner, perhaps begin this season.” (ESA listings do take time. Basically, they didn’t occur under Dubya. I don’t see any other option other than for the state to act decisively and aggressively. That ain’t gonna happen. See previous post.)
Best,
Ted

P.S.
While I’m not up on the logistics of how reclamation would go down at Big Reed, I would think that managers might want to try for a late fall project (weather conditions permitting) that would happen after bluebacks and brookies have spawned. This way the eggs (which aren’t killed by rotenone) would produce one generation. Smelt, spring spawners, would not have this advantage.
Best,
Ted

I understand that rotenone kills more than just fish. It kills invertebrates and mollusks as well. Perhaps it kills more than that. I will check into it and get back to you on it. Doesn’t that mean that an inventory of every living thing in Big Reed Pond must be done before using a pesticide?
What do we know about fish species in the lake other than brook trout and char? What do we do to protect them, provided there are other fish?
What about the bug life?

Invertebrates are killed by rotenone to an extremely limited extent; and they bounce right back, usually in greater abundance than before because they are now free of alien predators. One reason for this is that many of these organisms have a flying adult stage. The fact that no pesticide is completely selective has been used by chemophobes to block fish recovery all over the nation. I have no doubt that chemophobes would request an inventory of all life in a pond, and they’d like to see it last for a quarter century. Best way to look into all this is to read the following piece that ran in Fly Rod & Reel. See also: “Environmentalists Vs. Native Trout": Paste this into your browser:

http://www.flyrodreel.com/Fly-Rod-and-Reel-Online/April-2004/Environmentalists-Vs-Native-Trout/

Best,
Ted

Fly Rod & Reel -- July 2005

Restoration of imperiled fish just got shut down where it's needed most

Ann and Nancy's War

by Ted Williams

In the April 2004 issue I discussed the tragically misguided effort to ban the chemical piscicides rotenone and antimycin-chemicals that are used to poison alien fish prior to reintroducing natives, and which in most cases are the only tools available to save imperiled fish from extinction. At the time, that effort-led by Nancy Erman, a retired macroinvertebrate researcher from the University of California-Davis, and Ann McCampbell, of the Multiple Chemical Sensitivities Task Force of New Mexico (a group consisting, basically, of herself)-was only impeding restoration. Now, however, the two states where native fish populations are in most desperate need of these piscicides have, for all intents and purposes, banned them. Restoration in California and New Mexico has been stopped dead in its tracks; and the future of rotenone and antimycin, along with the native fish (not just trout) that can't be saved without them, is in jeopardy across America.

Facing possible extinction unless the bans are lifted are: the threatened Paiute cutthroat (the rarest trout in the world), the Gila trout (America's only inland salmonid listed as endangered), the Rio Grande cutthroat (New Mexico's state fish), the Lahontan cutthroat (once believed extinct), and the golden trout (California's state fish). In response, the Desert Fishes Council passed a resolution supporting piscicides at its November meeting in Tucson. In attendance was the world's foremost salmonid authority, Dr. Robert Behnke, who writes me as follows regarding the New Mexico Game Commission's August 18, 2004 decision to strip the Game and Fish Department of authority to use piscicides without commission consent: "Besides local chemophobes, a [non-practicing] medical doctor [McCampbell] raised nonsensical questions about contamination of groundwater-poisoning drinking water supplies. Her status as a 'medical authority' caused the commission to suspend treatment. Once this was accomplished, the chemophobe network notified the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board, leading it to believe that credible risks for piscicides had been established, and the board blocked the Silver King Creek rotenone treatment [to recover Paiute cutts]."

McCampbell and Erman's stunning success this past year would not have been possible without major help from sportsmen and the media. The threat of genetic introgression tends not to register with anglers. And why should it? They've been conditioned by the management establishment to relish Frankenstein fish-pigment-impoverished mutants and weird hybrids that keep the hatchery bureaucracy in business because they have to be concocted from genetically twisted stock or from species so divergent they're likely to produce sterile offspring. It's expecting a lot of anglers who read the hype about "palamino trout," "centennial golden rainbows," "albino rainbows," "saugeyes," "splake," "tiger trout," "tiger muskies," and "wipers" to worry about rainbow genes showing up in Gilas or cutts.

But there's antipathy as well as apathy. To see it you need go no further than fly-fishing Internet forums. One participant on the FR&R bulletin board (www.flyrodreel.com) writes about the recently aborted rotenone treatment of California's Silver King Creek, which would have de-listed Paiute cutts, thereby opening a closed fishery: "If they poison the stream and only the threatened native species is there, you won't ever be able to fish for it. . . . But we all know that closing down public access here would be great to these wackos." Another participant likens poisoning mongrel trout to "ethnic cleansing" and goes on to say: "I am a mongrel of sorts myself and delight in my diversity. . . . We Americans champion the freedom to love who ever we choose to love. . . . We abhor those who seek human genetic purity! American military men and women have died and continue to die for the freedom of others oppressed by those who wish to impose the same limitations on man as you are seeking to impose on trout. . . . 'Purity' is a word often used by racists, Nazis and bigots."

********

Two years ago the feds announced they would use antimycin to restore pure Colorado River cutts to Lake Pettingell on the west side of Rocky Mountain National Park. The lake is hardly a major angling destination-there's no trail, and it's a 12-mile poke during which you climb 3,000 vertical feet, then slide down about 7,000 vertical feet to fish an eight-acre pond. Local anglers could have fished for the pure cutts, but they were sentimental about their mongrels and threw such a hissy fit that the Park Service backed off.

With few exceptions the media is fish-stupid and lazy. Rather than really investigate the issues of native-fish restoration, reporters collect a few quotes from someone like Behnke, then offer what they call "the other side" by interviewing some utterly uncredentialed crackpot. In one Associated Press piece about the proposed project to recover Paiute cutts the only alleged authority cited was one Patty Clary of Californians for Alternatives to Toxics, who was quoted as making this false statement: "Essentially what they're proposing is to kill everything-everything-in this stream." High Country News recycled wives' tales spun by a rancher (a heavy user of herbicides and insecticides) who claimed that his "pregnant ewes must have drunk some [antimycin] poisoned water [because] the following spring two lambs were born dead with kidneys that weighed four pounds. It was totally grotesque." More alleged evidence was provided in the form of quotes from the terrified owner of Paprika (a pregnant llama) who claimed to have "started studying antimycin" on the Internet where he found all manner of "disturbing" info. Finally, the piece reported that rotenone applied to California's pike-infested Lake Davis sent 62 people to the hospital. The truth was that 62 residents, having whipped themselves to hysteria with poppycock provided by McCampbell and others, went to the hospital because they wrongly supposed they'd been sickened by rotenone, a naturally occurring chemical that in 71 years of use by fish managers has never been known to harm a person. (To the credit of High Country News, it allowed me to set the record straight in "Writers on the Range"-a syndicated column it sends to major Western newspapers.)

Despite suffering from what she calls "multiple chemical sensitivity," McCampbell was in full cry this past August at the New Mexico Game Commission meeting. Also in attendance were at least half a dozen of her acolytes, including Sam Hitt of Wild Watershed, who writes of her as follows: "Dr. Ann McCampbell, New Mexico's most effective advocate for a toxic-free environment, is a card-carrying outsider. Marginalized, ridiculed, ignored, she operates from the edge, without staff or budget, stitching together unlikely coalitions that win with the power of truth and little else. . . . Today she advocates despite debilitating illness, forced to live from time to time in a relatively chemical-free 1983 Chevy. . . . Dr. Ann slowly made her way from the back of the room to a table in front of the commissioners. After saying a sentence or two she would cover her nose and mouth with the respirator and take a deep breath."

McCampbell and her unlikely coalitions do win, but hardly with "the power of truth." She warns that the commercial formulation of antimycin-applied at less than 12 parts per billion-carries "a skull and crossbones warning" and "is fatal in humans if swallowed" directly from the bottle. All sorts of useful liquids also fall into this category, but not amtimycin. Because it's nontoxic to humans, EPA no longer requires the skull and crossbones on the label. At the commission meeting she and her troupe repeatedly called antimycin a "broad-spectrum poison"-this of a naturally occurring chemical with a half life of hours (unless it's exposed to direct sunlight, in which case, the half life is a few minutes) and that eradicates only fish, provided the treatment is successful. Further, she claimed that antimycin has been "banned in California . . . because, actually, California EPA has done the most updated review of this product."

First, it wasn't "banned;" it was just not re-registered because the new state pesticide regulations require rigorous testing that antimycin's manufacturer-Nick Romeo, who operates out of his house-can't afford, owing to his miniscule market. Second, California has not done a "review" of antimycin.

McCampbell told me there are plenty of alternatives to piscicides. When I asked her what these might be she said: "genetic swamping" (saturating mongrels with pure stock), "overfishing," and "netting" (none of which work), and "electro-fishing," which is horrendously labor intensive and works only on tiny streams.

Ilse Bleck, representing the 7,000-member Rio Grande Chapter of the Sierra Club, echoed McCampbell's untruths at the New Mexico Game Committee meetings that antimycin had been "banned in the state of California," recycled her misinformation about dangers to amphibians and macroinvertebrates, questioned whether the pure wild stock held in hatcheries could "adapt," and opined that saving Rio Grande cutthroats "does not outweigh the potential harm done to an otherwise healthy, self-sustaining ecosystem."

Lilly Rendt, another witness educated by McCampbell, likened piscicide formulations of antimycin and rotenone-which don't kill air-breathing organisms and are as close to silver bullets as chemical pesticides get-to DDT. And she said that, having seen the "eagles die," she didn't know "why we have to go through that again." As an alternative she suggested underwater TV cameras so managers could, well, kind of keep on eye on things.

However, there was much accurate testimony from state and federal fisheries managers and anglers, including TU's state chairman, William Schudlich, who passed out copies of my April 2004 FR&R column. Despite the histrionics of the McCampbell camp, sound science and good stewardship might have prevailed had it not been for the testimony of two respected outdoor writers from Silver City-Stephen Siegfried, outdoor editor of the Silver City Daily Press; and Dutch Salmon, author of seven outdoor books. "You're killing the threatened [Chiricahua leopard] frog," proclaimed Siegfried. (Adult frogs are unaffected and, if there's a frog or toad population in a project area, treatment is put off until tadpoles, which are usually unaffected anyway, have metamorphosed.) "What happens if an osprey has eaten a fish in the next drainage and flies over and drops the eggs? Do we poison the whole works again?" (Apparently, Siegfried is under the impression that unfertilized, digested fish eggs hatch.)

Both Siegfried and Salmon repeated most of McCampbell's misinformation, but their main contention (now part of McCampbell's standard harangue) was that introgressed fish are good enough if they're, say, 80 to 90 percent pure. As an alternative to poisoning mongrels they suggested the same non-solutions McCampbell endorses-electro-fishing and genetic swamping. They hadn't heard, didn't believe, or didn't care that subsequent cross breeding can increase alien genes.

Having assimilated all this testimony, the game commissioner who cast the deciding vote against piscicides, Peter Pino of the Zia Pueblo tribe, declared: "What if we came up with a poison that killed all the white people and left all the native people here? Would we like that? I think that's what we're talking about."

********

According to Sam Hitt, McCampbell was calling the meeting "a miracle in the making" before it even took place because she had been assured by Game Commission chairman Guy Riordan during one of her lobby sessions that he and "most of the board" agreed with her notions and found them "refreshing" and that, even before hearing a word of testimony, they "opposed" piscicides.

With this victory in hand, McCampbell and her network turned their attentions to Silver King Creek in California. Here they linked up with energetic ally Nancy Erman. The previous year Erman had single-handedly shut down Paiute restoration by convincing the Center for Biological Diversity to sue the US Forest Service, thereby frightening away the California Department of Fish and Game, which has jurisdiction over native fauna and didn't need the Forest Service anyway. To her credit, Erman has great knowledge of and affection for insects, some of which do indeed die during piscicide treatments. But she is unwilling to concede that bugs quickly recolonize from untreated water and that, when they do, they often fare better because they no longer have to cope with alien predators with which they did not evolve.

Like McCampbell, Erman plays fast and loose with the facts; and she cultivates a similar network of loud, aggressive, ignorant chemophobes. "Pisces"-the newsletter of the California-Nevada Chapter of the American Fisheries Society-allowed her to draw the old spurious connection between piscicides and DDT and to make the following false statements in its Winter 2004-05 issue: "Further poisoning is unnecessary for recovery of the Paiute cutthroat trout and may even threaten its future" and "many terrestrial mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians . . . are put at risk from these projects." Perhaps the most dishonest statement in the piece, a mantra of Erman, McCampbell and their followers, was this: "'Management' that sacrifices other species and natural processes for the sake of one species is a betrayal of the public trust." To the general public, politicians and the media, that means piscicides "sacrifice species." They do no such thing; they occasionally "sacrifice" non-target individuals. The local population then recovers.

When it looked like Paiute restoration was going to get underway in the fall of 2003, TU volunteers helped the state and feds electro-shock as many mongrels as they could from Silver King Creek and evacuate them to nearby water in order to placate local anglers for whom "a trout is a trout." But in "Pisces" Erman falsely accused managers of dumping the mongrels into pure Lahontan cutthroat habitat: "CDFG, Trout Unlimited, and the US Forest Service moved hybrid Paiute cutthroat/rainbows into other waters including Poison Lake. Poison Creek, the outlet of Poison Lake, had been a source for pure Lahontan cutthroat trout." I knew this to be false, and when I asked Erman where she'd gotten her information she hemmed and hawed and said: "Well, we found a reference that they had been using that stream for pure Lahontans." But the reference she produced talks about the Lahontan population introduced about a century ago to "Poison Flat Creek," a tributary of Poison Creek and isolated from it by a long series of impassable waterfalls.

Also testifying was Laurel Ames of the California Watershed Alliance. A month before the board meeting she had circulated an action alert entitled "Stop Poisoning of Sierra Nevada Creeks" that parroted Erman's and McCampbell's bogus claims: "It is well documented that non-chemical alternatives are available. . . . We shouldn't poison wilderness streams and lakes for fishermen who want to catch a certain kind of fish. . . . There is also new evidence that rotenone has long-lasting, possibly even permanent impacts on stream ecosystems." I pled with her to cease and desist, explaining that native-fish restoration isn't "for fishermen" any more than condor restoration is "for birders," that there are no "long-lasting impacts," that she was jeopardizing the last best chance to save a beautiful and unique creature from extinction, and that, although native trout are rarely seen by non-anglers such a herself, they're a vital part of natural ecosystems. I might as well have been speaking Chinese.

In their attempt to treat a mere 11 miles of stream-thereby restoring Paiutes to their entire native range, something that has never been done in salmonid restoration-the agencies have been jumping through hoops for 10 years. The recovery plan came out in 1985. On April 4, 2003 the project finally passed muster under a "biological opinion" prepared by the US Fish and Wildlife Service. On April 10, 2003 it passed muster under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). On May 5, 2004-after months of scoping sessions and public commentary-it passed muster under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). With that, Erman filed an administrative appeal that went all the way to the chief of the Forest Service, who denied it. On July 8, 2004 the Lahontan Regional Water Quality Control Board (a strictly political entity) issued a tentative permit, so the agencies committed major funding to the project-which they now can't get back. On August 10, 2004 the Fish and Wildlife Service issued its final "Revised Recovery Plan." On August 27 the board recommended issuing a final pollution-discharge permit.

Then, at the September 8, 2004 board meeting, after the window for legal challenge had expired, all the same ancient red herrings were hauled out and flung around by Erman, McCampbell and their minions. Both CEQA and NEPA studies had determined that there were no mountain yellow-legged frogs or Yosemite toads in the project area, yet there was endless flap about "danger" to these species. Both CEQA and NEPA studies had determined that there would be no permanent damage to macroinvertebrates, but there was endless talk of "dangers to macroinvertebrates." Erman was supposed to get five minutes to testify, but she was allowed to go on for at least 20 minutes. Finally, the board voted to make no decision, thereby blocking restoration indefinitely. Since the Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to do what's in their power to recover listed species, the board may be in violation of federal law.

"After all that work it just drove us nuts," declares Phil Pister, executive secretary of the Desert Fishes Council. "Nancy and all her buddies screamed so loud that the board was afraid to take action. It's going to get harder as time goes on."

Phister knows a thing or two about fish restoration. On August 18, 1969 he held the world's total population of Owens pupfish in two buckets. To save this fish he and his California Fish and Game colleagues had to build a refuge by damming a small stream and rotenoning out the largemouth bass, carp and bluegill. Today that would be politically impossible. Even back then he got a nasty letter from a snail fancier who fretted about snails getting poisoned from the two-acre impoundment. Since then anglers have continually slipped bass back into one of the refuges. They've done it "dozens of times," says Pister. "Each time Fish and Game removes most of the bass with electro-shockers and spear guns, since the impoundment is only about one acre. But it's extremely labor intensive. The local attitude is 'My granddaddy used to catch bass here and by Gawd I'm gonna do it, too.'"

Pister also helped save California's state fish-the golden trout-by poisoning browns that, in some places, outnumbered goldens 200-1. "Our job," he told me, "was to build a series of barriers, then introduce rotenone or antimycin. Luckily, this was before this big furor. We did run into some of it, though, with the animal-rights people." Millions of dollars have been invested in building these barriers, and now they're deteriorating. There are miles and miles of stream that need to be treated or re-treated, especially in the habitat of the threatened Little Kern golden trout. In the current climate that can't happen.

The turn-around has to begin with anglers who have acquired what 19th Century sportsman and outdoor writer George Bird Grinnell called "a refined taste in natural objects," anglers who defend native fish not because they are fun to catch or good to eat or beautiful, not because they are anything, only because they are. Herewith, two important facts to pass on to those who remain unconvinced: 1) Piscicides can only be used on small headwater streams; no one is talking about or is capable of poisoning out, say, browns and rainbows from the Madison River. And, 2) With the home-field advantage native species tend to grow faster and bigger than non-natives. Witness the robust native greenback cutts, which-in arguably the most dramatic success story in the history of the Endangered Species Act-have replaced the scrawny, stunted browns, rainbows and brookies in and around Rocky Mountain National Park. Thanks to piscicides you can now fish for greenbacks.

The chemophobes can't be educated, but they can be outlobbied. And the public can be won over by people who have the facts and dare to speak the truth, and who understand that creatures like Gila trout, Owens pupfish, and all the vanishing cutthroats are every bit as precious to our nation as redwoods, timber wolves, bison or grizzlies.

- 30 -

Dear George Smith:
I salute you and SAM for your enlightened stand on bluebacks and wish you success in that effort, though I fear you will face continued failure. I also salute you for your enlightened stands on heritage brook trout water and against further pollution of Maine with splake, a grotesque Frankenstein fish that debases native ecosystems, anglers, angling and a great state. See this also as a separate post.
Best,
Ted

Ted

I appreciate your perspective on the use of pesticides to protect native fish populations. I mean that sincerely yet without exhaustive research into rotenone I found the conclusion posted below. The article presents information linking rotenone to Parkinson's disease in one study. However bogus that may be or removed from its application humans would be if used in Big Reed Pond; it appears there is no scientific proof supporting the belief rotenone is benign. I am sure you can see the storm of public outrage likely to appear in Maine over the use of rotenone let alone ESA listing. I fear this is a fight from start to finish! Worse, in all likelihood by hook or by crook due to failure in application of rotenone or through the marvels of modern bucket biology smelts will be back in Big Reed Pond in short order.

http://www.pan-uk.org/pestnews/Actives/rotenone.htm

PAN UK believes that the same precautionary principle should be applied to all pesticides, and that no substance, however long-term its use, should be assumed to be safe without scientific assessment. The problems evident for rotenone – insufficient usage data, inconclusive studies, concern about unknown synergistic activity with other substances, and potential health hazards, are consistent with problems found with the majority of registered agrochemicals. (AC)

For the life of me I don't find information on "fake net". Could it be fyke net?

No pesticide is “benign.” However, in the almost 80 years that rotenone has been used in fisheries management not ONE person has been even mildly sickened or in any way affected by it. Please read my articles. If PAN UK thinks there is “insufficient usage data” for rotenone, they’re idiots. No pesticide (with the possible exception of DDT) has been studied harder. As for “Parkinson’s disease,” this is pure BS that has been recycled by Ann and Nancy and their flock of chemophobes along with a slovenly, fish-stupid press. In one experiment in which rotenone was MAINLINED into rats’ brains they developed Parkinson-like symptoms, NOT Parksinson’s disease. I doubt there’d be much of a fight about reclaiming Big Reed. Reclamations happen all the time in the East, and we don’t have the chemophobia they have in the West. I also doubt that smelts would be restocked. Whoever stocked them originally believed they’d make great fishing. It’s clear to everyone, even bucket biologists, that this isn’t the case.
Best,
Ted

Ted

I did read your article and it is well written however the moment I began to check into rotenone I found that not everyone is as confident in it as you are. They all may be wrong but I thought I should bring it to your attention as your article reads as an opinion piece and not a scientific study. There is nothing wrong in that. It is what it should be.
You are probably correct about the effects it may have on people and various creatures. In general people are fearful of chemicals and rightfully so given the track record of industry and government over the years. On some level we just can't blame them for being cautious.

I understand the state of Maine is having financial difficulties with a shortfall of $200 million which could lead to projects like Big Reed Pond being placed at a lower priority. Is there truth to that rumor? If so how can it be over come?

I looked up Big Reed Pond and it is listed as being 96 acres with a mean depth of 21 feet. I also found that a single gallon of rotenone costs $73.80. Nebraska paid $47.85 per gallon based on a 1,000 gallon order in 2006. The suggested treatment is 1 gallon of 5% rotenone per surface acre foot. That is something like 96 acres X 21 ft deep (average) = 2016 gallons of rotenone. The recommended treatment is 3 ppm so 1 gallon per acre foot should do it. If we were able to get rotenone at an average of the two prices it would cost $60.83 per gallon X 2016 gallons needed = $122,633.28 for the pesticide alone. I am not sure what a gallon of rotenone weighs but I believe water is about 8 lb per gallon. At 8 lb per gallon the weight would be 16,128 lb of rotenone.

I understand The Nature Conservancy either owns the pond and quite a bit of land around it or perhaps controls the land around it and there is no road to Big Reed Pond. The closest you can get to the pond with a vehicle appears to be about 3 miles from the lake. How close am I on this? Do you think the Nature Conservancy will allow a road to be built into the lake for this project or is something like a Sea Hawk helicopter needed to bring the rotenone to a landing from which to operate? Do you think the project could be done for $200,000?

Hi. And I don’t mean to sound like a smart ass. But the reason “not everyone is as confident” in rotenone as I am is because they don’t know a damn thing about it and they refuse to learn. A perfect example of this studied ignorance of the Adirondack Council and Wilderness Watch. By “confident” in rotenone I mean that I am confident that it will not harm people or wildlife. It has NEVER done so in 80 years. No one who knows anything about rotenone is confident that it will always work in reclamations. More than half the time it doesn’t work and another treatment is required. The moral and fiscal bankruptcy of the state of Maine is a very good reason to turn the project over to the feds. Roads are irrelevant. One would not have to be built. Wilderness ponds are reclaimed everywhere via aircraft.
Best,
Ted

Ted
Over all I support the use of pesticides where applicable. Big Reed Pond may be a problem financially, physically and socially. I would like to some steps taken ASAP. ESA is apt to take years a great deal of money all the while time is passing. I don't doubt it can be done. I don't doubt you are correct in saying humans will not be injured. From what I am reading there is plenty of positive support for the use of rotenone. Then there are those who in a study posted below have seen a different outcome.
If we were to use fyke nets this spring in the two tributary spawning areas of Big Reed Pond it would not cost a dime. With follow up harvests of smelts the numbers and over all size of smelts could be reduced to provide a food source for brook trout while driving the numbers of these nasty smelts down to a point where we can stock out blue back trout with a hope of success. In taking this approach at least in the short term we can avoid potential damage to other forage fish and not nuke any brook trout or blue back trout! In the mean time ESA could become a reality. Or perhaps be viewed as unnecessary. That is my opinion anyway. Like you and so many others I don't want to see native species lost. I don't think you are a wise guy just a fellow very interested in saving char.
Long Term Effect of Rotenone Treatment on the Fish Community of Big Chico Creek, California.
"The treatment had a substantial negative effect on biodiversity; several populations of native fish show negligible sign of recovering, while populations of all exotic species are up." http://www.csuchico.edu/~pmaslin/rsrch/rotenone/Intro.html

I don’t mean to be rude or condescending. But you are dreaming. All reclamations are problems “financially, physically and socially.” It is never easy to recover imperiled fish. You have no basis of fact to believe “it can’t be done.” It can be done. Forget about “harvesting” smelts. You don’t understand fish biology. It only takes two survivors; and you get the population back. You can’t suppress them. You either eliminate them or you don’t. I understand that “this is your opinion.” And, again, I don’t mean to be rude or condescending, but you really don’t know much about this issue. The Big Chico Creek incident is irrelevant. Of course if you wipe out a complex fish biota it’s not gonna bounce back. Why would anyone expect this? If these species are not reintroduced, of course they’re not going to recover. And, as I have repeatedly stressed, alien species re-infest reclaimed ponds more often than not. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to save imperiled fish from extinction. In fact, by federal law (the ESA) we must. In ponds like Big Reed we’re talking about native brook trout, native bluebacks and alien smelts. There’s no guarantee that reclamation will work. There’s a good chance it will work. We can fret and stew and come up with all these reasons why we might fail. Or we can make a good effort and try, and have a pretty good chance of saving bluebacks. You know--American can-do. Not American can’t-do. How about breaking with Maine tradition and being bold and aggressive?
Best,
Ted

"You have no basis of fact to believe “it can’t be done.” It can be done." TW

Dear Ted,

Please back up a moment and read what I wrote which was "I don't doubt it can be done." I haven't disagreed with you one bit!
I don't believe I should, "Forget about “harvesting” smelts." I apologize for not being clear on this. I do not believe for a moment that fyke nets will remove all smelts from Big Reed Pond. I do not believe smelts will be eradicated in this manner. I do believe their numbers can be controlled with an on going commercial harvest approach which can be helpful to both blue back trout and brook trout. This doesn't mean that attempts to list blue back trout should be forgotten. Time is of the essence here and ESA takes time. As you have pointed out;"Native fish, especially wild salmonids, don't have that kind of time." What I am seeking to find is an approach which is helpful to blue back trout and brook trout that can be immediately put into action at little cost with no roads, no expense, no slaughter of valued brook or blue back trout, or the native minnow species which so far you have not discussed or presented a plan for their reintroduction to Big Reed Pond post treatment. Perhaps you can help me. I found a list of the minnow species of Big Reed Pond but at this moment I can't find it again. There are a number of them some may be alien, others native. Those that are native must receive consideration.

You say I am "dreaming." Perhaps I am dreaming that valued native fish can be protected. What I haven't said is "it can't be done". I believe in American know how. The way American know how works is to lay all the cards on the table, understand the situation completely and develop a workable strategy. Part of that strategy is contingency planning. To bet the future of a native species entirely upon success of ESA listing at this moment in time may not be in the best interest of the blue back trout. ESA listing has not been GW's strong point. ESA listing may not be on McCain's radar, and it might not be for most on the agenda of either of the two Democratic Party's leading candidates. Our country is in a recession as well as at war. You and I may see the blue back trout as a high priority but I doubt other Americans value the blue back trout as they do universal health care, education, energy independence, or the price of gasoline.

“I do believe their numbers can be controlled with an on going commercial harvest approach which can be helpful to both blue back trout and brook trout.”
Why do you believe this? It has never happened before in fisheries management. Who are the “commercial harvesters” who would walk three miles into the woods to harvest essentially worthless fish? How would they keep them alive? They’d have to because no one’s gonna buy dead ones. And darned few people are gonna buy live ones. My point is this: Anyone can find dozens of reasons why reclamation might not work, why it would be dangerous for this or that minnow, why some people wouldn’t like it, etc. This is what Anne McCampbell and Nancy Ermin spend their lives doing. If we listened to them we would have lost most of our Paiute cutts, our Apache trout, Gila trout, Rio Grande cutts, and greenback cutts would be extinct. Fisheries managers who have spent their lives saving imperiled fishes have searched for an approach that is “immediate,” cheap, selective, etc. It DOES NOT EXIST. All native species ALWAYS receive consideration in reclamations. Rare frogs (not affected as adults and barely affected as tadpoles) are evacuated. Same with fish. I doubt that any minnow is native to Big Reed. If one is, it can be evacuated, too. This is standard in all reclamations. We need to stop wringing our hands and talking about painless solutions that don’t exist.
Best,
Ted

Ted

One of the problems with the Heritage legislation is that it applies to bodies of water not populations of fish.

Just because a water has received a brook trout stocking does not mean the bluebacks are not pure. Same for stocking salmon over pure strain brook trout.

In fact, stocking anything over any self-sustaining population of trout or salmon is not very good science (or economics). Why would you supress the natural reproduction? Why would you trade free fish for bought fish?

Big Reed has pure brookies and char. Stocking char from another source (because they waited too long to save the resident char) does not mean that the brookies should be taken off the list.

Unfortunately, any attempt no matter how sincere to alter the language of the bill will be used by the DIF&W to try to bury it becuase it cuts into their turf. Too bad they can't focus on what is good for the fish.

If a population of fish in a given body of water are genetically pure they should be protected regardless what else has been done. The prohibited act should be no more stocking of any type.

“Big Reed has pure brookies and char. Stocking char from another source (because they waited too long to save the resident char) does not mean that the brookies should be taken off the list.”
Agreed. However, I suggest ESA listing for bluebacks. This would mean the state (which has bungled all this) is no longer the lead agency. The feds and state would then be REQUIRED by law to manage first for bluebacks. The Big Reed strain of brook trout could easily be preserved via evacuation and fall treatment (which would spare all viable eggs). Reclamation would (hopefully) eliminate the smelts that now preclude blueback success in Big Reed. If any bluebacks still exist, they could be evacuated, too. If not, others could be re-introduced. The genetic divergence between Maine blueback populations is almost certainly less significant than that between brook trout populations. And, despite any divergence, Big Reed is a large, vital sanctuary for bluebacks. that should and must be utilized to save this highly imperiled species.
Best,
Ted

Ted

I am with you here. Anything short of an immediate ESA petition will put the remaining char at risk of going away. The Maine F&G folks just don't seem to have the focus, money, or desire to do the right thing. Things seem to be getting worse and worse up there. They are just gutting the recent Heritage char bill and putting stocking programs above the health of these rare wild and native fish. This is amazingly shortsighted but par for the course as of late. I suspect that a listing would have to come from TU or some small group of anglers. Tough one for SAM to lead as some in their ranks would likely see it as a threat to 'fishing' which it is not as I have personally fished several waters that contain listed trout. You just can't 'kill' them. Groups like SAM, TU (if they fail to lead), Audubon, Nature Conservancy, would almost have to get on board or risk the fall-out of not stepping up. So, who is going to act?

Dear Ted

After checking into things a bit I found that the following species inhabit Big Reed Pond.
Char
Brook trout
Blacknose dace
Creek chub
Finescale dace
Lake chub
Northern redbelly dace
Smelt
White sucker
Pearl dace

I don't know at this time exactly which are native species and which may be alien other than the smelts. I hope you find this of some help.

I was a bit taken back by you comments regarding the value of smelts both dead and alive. Are you aware that a dozen packaged,dead, frozen smelts sold last season in Maine for $5.00? Did you know that commercial anglers, so I have been told, snow machine as much as 10 miles into lakes to harvest Maine smelts?

I think you underestimate the efficiency of commercial fisherman. All one has to do is look at the condition of our ocean to recognize the efficiency and skill of commercial fishermen. There is a reason why there are limits set on the harvest of smelts Ted. I suspect it to protect smelt populations from over harvest. Why do you think there are harvest limits on smelts; perhaps I missed the intent of the law?

I contacted fishery experts in Maine to gather all the information I can on smelts, char and commercial smelt fisherman. Give me a few days and I can give you a few more facts to take into consideration when approaching this situation.

The first thing I would ask IF&W for is a moratorium on all angling of char. I believe we are already in agreement on this point from earlier in this thread. I would take it up a notch in that all the ponds contain char should be closed to all angling including C&R. It is time for anglers to face their responsibility to do right by species like char and take the hook out of the water. It is the one thing we can do to stop the exploitation, mutilation and decimation of our Heritage Blueback trout.

First, there’s a good chance that none of these minnows are native to Big Reed. There’s an even better chance that no data exists on what minnows are or are not native. Third, these minnows abound in Maine. Fourth, char are flirting with extirpation in Maine. Are you talking about ocean jack smelts sold for food? I can believe someone would pay $5 for a dozen. Maybe a troller would pay $5 for a dozen frozen freshwater smelts. But how big is that market? Where are these “commercial” freshwater smelt fishermen you speak of? Yes, a few people net and sell smelt for bait. One person in Maine raises smelt for bait. Why would a bait netter walk three miles into Big Reed, carrying all his equipment, when smelt abound in so many other easily accessible water bodies? Why are you talking about “ocean” commercial fishermen? And how many fish have they wiped out? I mean completely wiped out, extincted. I’ll tell you: NONE. Finally, why are you so obsessed with this ridiculous notion that any type of harvest can rid a body of water of fish when this has been repeatedly proven to be impossible? Time for you to drop this fantasy and move on to serious fisheries considerations.
Best,
Ted

Ted

Some of the minnow species listed above are suspect. Maine has been moving minnows around the state like crazy under the guise of 'fishing' for generations and they may be more dug in on this today than ever before thanks to a high-ranking F&G administrator who sees live bait as 'traditional fishing' and anything that tries to curtail it as an attack on such. This is what happens when you appoint unqualified politicians to key F&G positions. Of the minnows noted, some of the dace [especially black-nose] are likely native to the pond. Smelts are not and chubs and suckers are suspect. Even if Maine does not know exactly what was in Big Reed to start with, they must have a pretty good idea based on similar waters, historical records, fish distribution maps, etc. I remember seeing a list of legal baitfish on one of the websites that listed the level of threat they pose to brookies. This could help. I suspect they can tell us the same in regard to char. How many more populatiosn of wild trout and salmon must Maine lose before they start getting serious about protecting them? Their fascination with hatcheries is troublesome.

"Some of the minnow species..." Very well said! Live bait has NO place near any self-sustaining salmonid water. The list of baitfish you remember seeing appeared in Forrest Bonney's excellent volume on Naine brook trout. And see bellow.
Best,
Ted

Where Baitfish Don't Belong
Ted Williams
Wild trout water more beautiful than northern Maine's Big Reed Pond doesn't exist. It is embraced by one of the few remaining old-growth forests in the East. It is one of about 307 lakes in the nation (305 in Maine) that still sustain native brook trout undefiled by hatchery genes and one of only 14 waters in the nation (all in Maine) known to sustain native populations of blueback trout, a grievously imperiled race of arctic char.

In the early 1990's guide Gary Corson found smelts in Big Reed. Smelts are native to Maine but not to Big Reed. They're legal bait in Maine but not in Big Reed. Someone — apparently in an effort to grow bigger brookies and bluebacks —had illegally introduced them.

It worked spectacularly. In fact, the bluebacks, which had averaged about 10 inches (big for landlocked char) were suddenly attaining lengths of over 20 inches. There was a problem, however: Recruitment all but ceased. The smelts were chowing down on blueback and brookie fry, then competing with surviving bluebacks for zooplankton. Corson, who used to fly his clients into Big Reed at least three times a week, says he wouldn't fish there today. "In the deeper water we'd get the occasional two- or three-pound brookie; and the shoreline was full of smaller fish. Everything disappeared." So it goes when baitfish are unleashed where they don't belong.

Thousands of other native fish populations across America have been undone by baitfish introductions. Anglers have dumped bait pails on purpose and by mistake, and bait dealers have introduced non-native baitfish in order to have additional waters to seine. One thing is certain: If baitfish are used in water where they are not native, they will become naturalized.

While the literature is rife with warnings about the dangers to salmonids from non-native spiny-finned fish like perch and bass, it scarcely mentions baitfish. But the second problem contributes to the first. Few bait dealers know what they're selling, fewer anglers know what they're buying and no one knows what they're seining. Often juvenile spiny-fins (perch, bass, sticklebacks and the like) are mixed in with the soft-fins (shiners, chubs, suckers and the like); and while the targeted soft-fins may be legal, non-target soft-fins in the haul frequently aren't.

An informal survey of bait dealers in Wyoming turned up juvenile trout infected with whirling disease mixed in with legal baitfish. And baitfish shipments, especially in the West, are often contaminated with sticklebacks, which promptly take over new habitat, carpeting the bottom and blowing off primary production. What's more, sticklebacks provide scant forage to game fish (largemouth bass actually lose weight when they eat them). The loudest complainers are the bait dealers themselves, because the sticklebacks they inadvertently spread around wipe out the baitfish they target.

Greg Gerlich, senior aquatic biologist for the Colorado Division of Wildlife, dispatched crews to purchase 60 baitfish from each of a dozen bait shops. "Only two of those shops had mono-specific cultures, like all fathead minnows," he says. "The rest contained everything from goldfish to small carp to suckers to yellow perch to sticklebacks. Minnows are expanding beyond their range. We're seeing new populations of sticklebacks, yellow perch, carp and goldfish."

"I think we're making some headway with baitfish introductions," says Maine's chief fish biologist, John Boland. "Ice fishermen [the primary baitfish users in the East] are much more cognizant about not dumping bait down the hole." Still, the level of ignorance is appalling. Most ice anglers receive their education not from managers like Boland, but from Internet, newspaper and barroom commentary, much of it provided by baitfish dealers. For example, in the February 18, 2007, Kennebec Journal the head of the Maine Bait Dealers Association, Stephen Staples, offered the following about alleged dangers of baitfish becoming naturalized in salmonid habitat: "If that happens, so what? Shiners are much needed forage for our fisheries and not harmful to the watersheds."

Try that out on the people who used to fish Oregon's sprawling Diamond Lake, so high in the headwaters of the Umpqua River that it was fishless until rainbow trout were stocked circa 1912. The rainbows grew an inch a month, commonly reaching 10 pounds. But sometime in the 1940's tui chubs were introduced by bait anglers or perhaps by bucket biologists as "much needed forage" for rainbows. The rainbows ate the chubs, but not enough to make a difference. The chubs cleaned out the zooplankton, slicing off the rainbows' food chain at the base and enabling the proliferation of toxic blue-green algae on which the zooplankton had grazed.

In 1954 the state successfully reclaimed the lake with rotenone, and the trophy fishery recovered, eventually attracting 100,000 anglers a year. But around 1990 someone introduced tui chubs again. Again the chubs took over, dominating the biomass and facilitating poisonous algae blooms that made it unsafe to swim or even fish. Finally — in September 2006 at a cost of $6 million in federal, state, county and private money — the state again reclaimed Diamond Lake, killing an estimated 90 million tui chubs. "In two or three years we hope the nutrients tied up in the chubs that were killed will recycle back into invertebrates and zooplankton," says Rhine Messmer, of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife. "We'll then ramp up our stocking, and hopefully we'll have the trophy fishery we had before."

But such happy endings, if this turns out to be one, are rare. Most bait-infected salmonid waters are too big or have too many inlets, springs or marshes to be reclaimed. We lose them forever. Consider the fate of native brook trout in New York State's Adirondack Park as reflected in the microcosm of the Saranac Lake Wild Forest management unit. An estimated 94 percent of the unit's 19,010 acres of ponded surface water historically supported brook trout. Today three percent supports brook trout, and the figure would be only .5 percent had the state not done reclamations. Furthermore, only one of the 156 ponds and lakes in this unit is thought to have been affected by acid rain; the rest have been rendered troutless by alien fish.

Golden shiners, white suckers and yellow perch are among the worst invasives, and all appear to have been moved around in bait buckets. Of the thousands of Adirondack ponds that have been lost to soft-fins and spiny-fins, only a few are suitable for rotenone treatment. But there's another problem-key people within the Adirondack Park Agency choose not to learn about rotenone and therefore fear it. And, largely because an ecologically illiterate NGO called the Adirondack Council keeps hissing in the agency's ear, it forbids helicopters in state-designated wilderness during summer (the only practical way of transporting equipment and the only time surveys and reclamations are possible). "We have people in the Park Agency telling us our data is too old to justify management," says Bill Schoch, the Department of Environmental Conservation's regional fish manager. "And, at the same time, the agency tells us we can't fly into these ponds to get new data. It's incredibly frustrating."

The ongoing game of musical chairs we play with baitfish endangers more species than those that titillate us by bending our rods. For instance, non-native baitfish-especially red shiners-are impeding restoration of federally threatened spikedace and loach minnows (which occur only in the Gila River basin of Arizona and New Mexico) and threatened pike minnows and endangered razorback chubs in the Colorado River system.

Although golden shiners can be a major threat to wild salmonids when humans fling them around the waterscape, they're every bit as important to their native ecosystems as brook trout are to theirs. The European rudd-with which bait dealers and bait anglers have polluted the Great Lakes, the St. Lawrence River system and now Maine-threatens to hybridize our native golden shiners out of existence.

Not all tui chubs are prolific. Two races — the Mohave tui chub of California's Mojave River and the Owens tui chub of California's Owens Valley — are now federally endangered largely because non-native chubs, unleashed in their habitat by bait anglers or bait dealers or both, are crossbreeding with them. The California Department of Fish and Game would like to keep these endangered fish on the planet by reclaiming a little of their lost habitat, but antimycin is illegal in California, and the department's senior fish biologist, Steve Parmenter, correctly notes that use of rotenone isn't "politically feasible." In other words, public ignorance, which got these fish into trouble in the first place, is now preventing their recovery.

Damage to native-fish habitat in the West, grievous as it is, palls beside damage in the East. One reason is that many Western states have decent regulations (if not enforcement), while regulations in the East are hopelessly inadequate. Montana and Wyoming have banned live baitfish west of the continental divide-their best trout water. Colorado has banned live baitfish in water above 7,000 feet-its best trout water. Washington and Oregon prohibit all live baitfish in freshwater. California has a virtual ban. West of the divide New Mexico permits only fathead minnows.

New York, on the other hand, hopes to narrow down legal baitfish species to 15 including the golden shiner and white sucker with which it has had so much trouble. But at this writing, just about any soft-fin goes (though all baitfish have been banned and will continue to be banned in important native brook trout water). In Pennsylvania it is actually legal to seine baitfish from water where they are native or naturalized and release them in water where they are neither. Maine, which has lost about 90 percent of its wild brook trout habitat but nonetheless retains an estimated 97 percent of all ponded native brook trout water in the nation, has also banned live baitfish in much of its remote trout water. But major brook trout strongholds-including the 92-mile-long ribbon of lakes, ponds, rivers and streams known as the Allagash Wilderness Waterway-are still open.

Among the 23 species of baitfish Maine still permits are the golden shiner, lake chub, fathead minnow and common shiner (which it has determined pose a "moderate" threat to brook trout), smelt, longnose sucker, creek chub (a "high" threat), and white sucker (a "severe" threat-more severe even than yellow perch, brown bullheads and largemouth bass, which it bans).

Only in Maine has the threat of baitfish attracted major media attention. The flap started with two proposed pieces of long overdue and desperately needed legislation almost pathetically modest in their goals-akin to Oliver Twist asking for seconds on gruel.

One was introduced on behalf of the Sportsman's Alliance of Maine (SAM). The bill would ban live baitfish from a few of the "B List" ponds-where brookies are self-sustaining and haven't been stocked in at least 25 years. "This is nothing but a continuation of the bill passed in 2005 that protects 'heritage trout' in 305 unstocked ponds-the 'A List,'" declares Gary Corson, the Maine guide who discovered smelt in Big Reed Pond and who serves on SAM's Fishing Initiative Committee. "The state recognizes 284 B List ponds, but at least 36 of these have been stocked with species other than brook trout. SAM wants them off the list; it's unreasonable to ask the department to stop stocking landlocked salmon, for instance. And some of the waters don't qualify as principal brook trout waters; we want those off the list, too. We're not looking for big numbers." As Corson notes, ice fishing isn't allowed on most B List Ponds anyway. After all the subtraction, ice anglers would be prevented from using live bait on only 14 ponds out of over 1,100 available to them. And even on these 14 they would be able to use jigs, worms and dead baitfish (very effective for brook trout and lake trout when fished on the bottom).

The other bill, introduced on behalf of the Dud Dean Angling Society (DDAS), would ban just four of the 23 legal species of baitfish-the ones the scientific literature lists as alien to the state. These are the spottail, blackchin and emerald shiners, and the eastern silvery minnow. Emerald shiners are of special concern because they are primary vectors of Viral Hemorrhagic Septicemia (VHS), a devastating fish disease now established in the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River System.

"A few ice fishers and bait dealers have been stirring the pot on the Internet, getting everyone all charged up," says Corson. "These guys don't know what the hell they're talking about, and no one on our side is willing to get into that kind of a fight with them. We haven't heard a peep from open-water bait fishers."

The noise from Maine carried all the way to New York City, and on March 13, 2007 The Wall Street Journal, in typical fashion, spun the baitfish controversy into what it called a "class war" between native, blue-collar ice fishermen and rich, YUPPY flyrodders "mostly 'from away.'"

Whipping ice anglers into a froth of fear, loathing and paranoia has been Maine's property-rights community, which has seized on the proposed legislation as a means of vilifying those who value native ecosystems — i.e., the ubiquitous, liberal "greenies." SAM, it alleges, has been infiltrated by "environmental extremists," "eco-fundamentalists" and "fly fishing elitists." SAM, TU and the "Duds" (DDAS) have conspired to push traditional anglers out of the way "so they can have the resource all to themselves."Sponsors and supporters of the bills who once lived or were educated in other states are "invasive species themselves." The legislation is "incrementalism," "a government jackboot in the door" and "the first salvo" in a meticulously planned offensive to ban all ice fishing. . . .

Among the more prolific of Maine's conspiracy theorists is one Alfred Moore of Milbridge, who spends his days crusading on Internet comment boxes, blogs, forums and chat rooms against what he calls "the Environmental Industry" (always capitalized). According to one of his daily warnings, the "anti-live bait legislation could ban use of live bait forever." He defines brook trout as "the 'new' Atlantic salmon" and proclaims that "Environmental Industry groups are already buying up land to 'protect the natives,'" which he expects will soon be listed under the Endangered Species Act, first in the long list of federal statutes he detests.

Similar rhetoric issues from bait dealers, particularly their chief spokesman-John Whalen, a former state game warden and Maine's only propagator of alien emerald shiners. "Ethically, the fly fishermen don't like ice fishing," he told The Wall Street Journal. "They view it as consumptive, removing 'resource' from the environment." Whalen defines advocates of the baitfish legislation as "ring-tailed barstards [sic]" out to "eliminate ice fishing and general law fishing opportunities and to just screw with traditional Maine fishers."

A mantra from Moore, Whalen and the rest of the Maine anti-bait-reg lobby is that there's no proof that spottail, blackchin and emerald shiners and the Eastern silvery minnow are non-natives. That's true, but also irrelevant because a baitfish doesn't have to be alien to ruin a state's fishery — it only has to be alien to the body of water in which it is unleashed. Witness, for example, the fate of the brookies and bluebacks that used to abound in Big Reed Pond. Moreover, the burden of proof that these baitfish are alien should not be on those who seek to protect wild trout. The burden of proof that these baitfish are native (and none exists) should be on those who want to risk seeding them throughout the state.

In the last decade or so the Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife has done a much better job of managing the national treasure it has been entrusted with. Its brook trout specialist, Forrest Bonney, reports a significant increase in the percentages of older and bigger fish. Draconian bag limits-down to one fish on some ponds-have done wonders.

Thanks to scientists like Bonney and fisheries chief Boland, Maine also has some excellent management policies in place. It's just that, with so much political heat from special-interest groups like bait dealers, those policies don't always get implemented. Considering all the department's talk about the dangers of alien fish, you'd think it would want to prohibit use of at least the four baitfish it believes are alien to the state. But it testified against the DDAS bill, and, on the department's advice, a legislative committee recommended that only the blackchin shiner be banned. "Why?" I asked Boland.

Boland is a very good biologist, but his answer made no sense to me. He explained that the 23 species of legal baitfish are "extremely difficult to identify," that "we don't have reliable records for their distribution," and that "it wouldn't make a lot of sense to saddle the wardens with this kind of enforcement." I can't think of three better reasons to restrict the use of all live baitfish in and near wild trout water until biologists figure out what lives where.

At this writing the department doesn't have an official position on SAM's bill, but Boland doesn't like it. Two years ago, at the legislature's direction, the department convened a working group to determine what additional wild trout ponds needed protection from baitfish. "Right in the middle of this comes this bill from SAM," says Boland. "In a way I look at it as undermining the group's efforts." But the department waited 10 months to call a meeting and SAM got impatient.

Natural Resources Committee chair Rep. Theodore Koffman (D-Bar Harbor), who introduced SAM's legislation, offers this: "Mr. Boland probably won't come in with a better bill; that's troubling. The folks I've been working with — former department staff, anglers and guides — feel that the department has fallen way short and is hobbled by pressures. I can't confront it head on; so this is the way I'm trying to do it."

There's a small minority of ice anglers and bait dealers vindictive and/or selfish enough to intentionally disperse baitfish as well as alien game fish that they happen to favor, particularly pike. Draw maps of Maine's major baitfish dealerships, its major ice angling activity, its major rudd infestation, its major emerald shiner infestation, its major pike infestation, and you pretty much have a single map.

On February 6, 2007, a hearing was held on the DDAS bill in Monmouth. One of the participants, TU and DDAS member Jeff Levesque (who until recently served on both the state's brook trout working group and SAM's Fishing Initiative Committee) told me this: "As we were all leaving, one of the leaders of this whole [anti-bait-reg] crew came up to me and said: 'If you fly-fishermen keep pushing to ban these invasives, they're just going to get spread around.' That's the mentality of these guys. It doesn't surprise me that they're applauding the pike introductions."

Meanwhile, in Maine and across the nation, bait anglers and bait dealers continue to purposefully and accidentally festoon aquatic habitat with alien baitfish and whatever other aliens are mixed in with them. And education, enforcement and legislative reform move at the pace of continental drift.

Native fish, especially wild salmonids, don't have that kind of time.

A few back I had some correspondence with Dr. Behnke concerning Maine’s blueback.
He said this on the subject of fishing pressure:

“Overfishing is rarely the main problem for maintaining populations of Arctic char. Angling mortality typically is a very minor part of total mortality. Mortality due to environmental conditions--temp., and oxygen regimes and coexisting fish species are the deciding factors governing the persistence of char. The Rangely Lakes typify the decline of Arctic char in the Northern Hemisphere. The abundance of the native blueback char resulted in unlimited "overfishing", yet they persisted until the introductions of smelt and Atlantic salmon exterminated them in a few years. The Maine Dept. should have data on fishing pressure and angler take on their char lakes for intelligent management, but, realistically, based on many case histories, complete protection from angler take cannot reverse the causes of declining populations.”

It’s about habitat. It’s about forestry practices. It’s about roads and bad culverts.
It’s about people introducing competing fish species.

Why is it still only a $50 fine if caught using live smelt as bait in blueback waters?

Exactly right. I had the same conversation with him. In fact, complete protection is often hurtful. When the greenbacks were rediscovered by Behnke they were listed as endangered. No one could fish for them, and there was little public support. When they were downlisted to threatened (a political decision but a good one), TU members and other trout advocates started catching them (no-kill only, as today), and the program took off. When Atlantic salmon were still self-sustaining (but declining) in Maine, I opposed endangered status, favoring threatened instead so that anglers could catch and release. Anglers on rivers are the best defense against poachers because there are so few wardens. It got to the point, however, where endangered status made sense because our fish were on the verge of extirpation.
Best,
Ted

Ted

I have received some very interesting information on the fish of Big Reed Pond.
Char - native
Brook trout - native
Northern Redbelly dace - native

Creek chub - illegal intro -1992
Lake Chub - illegal intro - pre 1958
White sucker - illegal intro - pre 1958
Pearl dace - illegal intro - 2006
Blacknose dace - illegal intro - pre 1958
Finescale dace - illegal intro - pre 1958
Smelt - illegal intro - 1991

There does not appear to be any hard data pre-1958 however an examination of the outlet impasses and species composition of surrounding waters was made and it was determined that several minnow species are likely from early illegal intros.
Hence it is fair to say that chemical control would now be much easier to accomplish. I thought you might like to know this good news.

"Are you talking about ocean jack smelts sold for food?"

No, I was not talking about ocean jack smelts.
I have begun to get back information regarding what may be Maine's most valuable fish! It is amazing! I was shocked to find the real value of smelts!

For example; one 5 ¼ inch smelt weighs about 11.5 grams there are about 40 in one lb. Live that is worth #20.00 whole sale and are sold in Maine retail at $40.00 per pound. Last season live 5 ¼ inch smelt sold for $1.00 each in some areas of northern Maine.
There are about 129 smelts in the 3.5 inch size in a pound (approximately 11 dozen) worth $32.00 whole sale which sell retail for $60.00 per pound.
Dead the value of these fish are ¾ the live price. All of this is subject to change in supply. Demand has been constant and not as much a matter of concern.
There are roughly 300 Commercial Smelt License holders in Maine.

There are two types of smelt regulations recreational and commercial. No body of water managed for salmonids is on the Commercial list.
Recreational smelt fishermen are restricted to a 2 quart limit per day. The general Maine fishing license is required for recreational smelt fishing.
Commercial Smelt fishermen are restricted to 8 quarts per day.

Big Reed Pond is not on the Commercial list but given the situation there it simply makes no since to restrict the lake to recreational smelt fishing only. For that matter it is madness to protect smelts in Big Reed Pond at all! By rights we can all get a Commercial Smelt Fishing license and beat the smelts down to bite size brook trout food while efforts are made to list char. Better yet! TU or some such organization could get a Scientific Collectors Permit from IF&W harvest smelts and do a stomach analysis study to see the extent of predation on blueback trout and brook trout.

There is no need to walk into Big Reed Pond except for the exercise Ted when snow machines are permitted. There are two obstacles preventing a dramatic reduction in the smelt population of Big Reed Pond.
It isn't on the commercial smelt listing and there are restrictions on the number of quarts per day that can be taken.

Oh! There is one other! All drinking must be stopped by noon because the harvest is done through the ice at night, so you got to be in condition to work!

You ask why I have an interest in this. I will explain. Some great old sportsmen took time to teach me to love all that is wild and beautiful in our world and like you I care about fish like blueback trout. With a few simple regulation changes the tide can be turned in favor of the blueback trout while you and others pursue ESA listing. You know ESA will take time and as you have pointed out.

"Native fish, especially wild salmonids, don't have that kind of time."

It can be done! Please help!

Why can’t you grasp the simple reality that it does NO good to reduce alien fish? You have to exterminate them because they ALWAYS come back. An army of smelt killers would have to start now and work there forever to “reduce” the smelt population. And then the pond still wouldn’t be safe for bluebacks, which are probably gone already. You are dreaming if you think that “commercial smelt fishermen” who can catch smelt anywhere and everywhere would ride snowmobiles into Big Reed. And how would they catch significant numbers in winter (or for that matter any time)? If they did, who would buy them? Don’t tell me rec. fishermen. They can buy all the smelts they need right now. Now read this carefully, and please pay attention, because this is getting very tiresome: You CANNOT help blueback trout by siccing commercial fishermen on them, even if they could reduce them. This is a harebrained, silly idea. Get rid of it! You can only help bluebacks by exterminating smelt. You seem to have a lot of time to collect “interesting” information. Why don’t you start collecting some interesting RELEVANT information? Please start with fisheries biologists. Ask a few what they think of your smelt reduction scheme via “commercial smelt fishermen.”
Best,
Ted

"Why can’t you grasp the simple reality that it does NO good to reduce alien fish?" TW

The reason is apparently I know some things about this you do not.

"An army of smelt killers would have to start now and work there forever to “reduce” the smelt population." TW

Not so.

"You are dreaming if you think that “commercial smelt fishermen” who can catch smelt anywhere and everywhere would ride snowmobiles into Big Reed. And how would they catch significant numbers in winter (or for that matter any time)? If they did, who would buy them? Don’t tell me rec. fishermen." TW

Yes they will, partly for the smelt and partly because they, like you, care about our wildlife.
It doesn't take many just smart commercial fishermen. Winter is the preferred time to harvest them. I can't tell you exactly how it is done, though it has been explained to me in great detail, as it is proprietary. You can however investigate how far North American Native fishermen harvest fish through the ice. It will give you some level of understanding.
When it was explained to me I was astounded at the knowledge base these guys have of fish, fish behavior and their craft. I guess, in commercial fishing as in fly fishing you have to be smarter than a fish to catch it.

Yap! Recreational fishermen sales for both dead and alive. Now that there are special regulations preventing the use of live smelts, dead smelt and some new developments in the use of dead smelts is underway. Ted, dead works better!

Will they be totally eliminated? NO! Should they? Perhaps not as small sub adult smelt make a good forage base for brook trout, provide the blueback trout with cover and feed. As you have pointed out both the blueback and brook trout first respond to the presence of smelts with rapid growth. Why not manage them to that end?

As you point out chemical treatment may not work and need to be repeated at a tremendous cost.

You are correct "smelt killers would have to start now" unfortunately you have dragged your feet and time has been lost. Fyke nets