Ted Williams touches on an issue I’ve long wondered about; why are so many environmental groups blind to fish issues?
You’ll find support for fisheries popping up in extreme circumstances (salmon runs collapsing, etc), but by and large, fishermen and fisheries groups (like CalTrout and TU) are on their own, or living an uneasy partnership with whitewater/river groups who don’t always share the same goals.
Fish are every bit as beautiful and colorful as birds, but few environmentalists ever see them because few are anglers. For instance, when you log on to the website of the Adirondack Council you hear the vocalization of a common loon — the symbol of wilderness.
The council sees and hears loons, but it doesn’t see or hear the brook trout that sustain loons and that are also symbols of wilderness.
Wild brook trout in the Adirondacks have declined by roughly 97 percent. Today only about three percent of the park’s brook-trout habitat still sustains brook trout, and the figure would be only 0.5 percent had not the state used rotenone to reclaim ponds infested with alien fish. But the council, which chooses not to learn about rotenone, has basically blocked its use in park wilderness.
We’ve had rotenone use blocked by environmental groups right here in CA, including some programs aimed at removing non-native rainbow species in favor of native-in-that-range Golden Trout.
Then again, even fishermen haven’t universally supported removal of rainbow and brown trout in favor of cutthroat reintroduction.
Do native species matter? Should non-natives be removed to reintroduce natives to their ranges?
Read more at: When Environmentalists Turn Against Nature – Ted Williams
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