Interesting Brook Trout Info from a Scientist
- Thread starter caddisflyer
- Start date
Wow, a lot of stuff. Over in NJ genetic research about 20 years ago indicated many likely native populations in small trickles; hatchery descendents in others (mostly Nassua NH strain). Led to stopping stocking of brook trout. Seems brook trout in one major river, the Musconetcong, have started to recover. I have a couple of spots where I can almost guarantee to catch a brookie or two now.
Also indicated climate change can be a scapegoat to put things we can control in the background. Never thought of it that way, but interesting. Developers could blame climate change for habitat degradation they cause.
Storm water drainage is interesting too and have an NJ case. In one NJ blue line drainage they built a big apartment complex. The stream below the parking lot outflow ceased to have brookies. Water in normal flows was OK, but warm, contaminated flow from summer rains harmed the stream.
Also indicated climate change can be a scapegoat to put things we can control in the background. Never thought of it that way, but interesting. Developers could blame climate change for habitat degradation they cause.
Storm water drainage is interesting too and have an NJ case. In one NJ blue line drainage they built a big apartment complex. The stream below the parking lot outflow ceased to have brookies. Water in normal flows was OK, but warm, contaminated flow from summer rains harmed the stream.
dudemanspecial
Well-known member
So brook trout aren't native to Pennsylvania?
It sounds like actual native brook trout were wiped out in PA. and replaced a stocked strain. I am guessing that the massive deforestation back in the 1800's / early 1900's and then reintroduction by stocking years later did this.
dudemanspecial
Well-known member
Okay. So he isn't saying that brook trout weren't here before the 1800's, he is saying those are all gone and the only trout left are descendents of the first hatchery fish from Bellefonte.
He mumbled something about a Long Island strain of Brook trout but I didn't really catch what he was saying there either.
JGR
Active member
The species was described from a brook trout caught on long island. I had to read the closed caption to catch it.
JimKennedy
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They went over a key detail very quickly just after the part where the biologist talks about Tim King with usgs and his identification of the true brook trout strains. First he says that all the brook trout in Pennsylvania are from New York hatchery strains.
Here’s the key detail:
The interviewer asks, what are the fish we call native brookies. The biologist answers that they are a distinct species of the same genus as brook trout, but they have not assigned a species name or suggested a common name.
In other words the New York hatchery creatures are fontanalis, but the creatures from the charr family that have been in Pennsylvania since the last ice age are different enough, in his estimation, to warrant a new species designation.
He is a biologist and I am not a scientist of any kind, and I respect the genetic differences he has identified.
I plan on looking up his research papers and reading them myself. I do have some under grad level knowledge of genetics, but I still anticipate a hard read.
That said, I suspect the biologist is a splitter, while I tend to agree with the lumpers. In many scientific pursuits, lumpers (or some similar word) describes people who accept different traits like adult male height, or adult female breast size as being variations within a species.
Splitters (or whatever synonym is in vogue) often use such differences to justify a new species.
In genetics, the lumper splitter divide applies to both expressed traits and anomalies that are discernible only at the molecular level.
Given the massive variation within our own species, I tend to side with lumpers.
That said, variation within a species can be very important. All dogs are the same species, yet the difference between a beagle and a golden retriever is significant.
Back to brook trout. The so called New York hatchery strain very likely dates to the early days of the US Fish Commission and various state fish commissions, all formed in the 1870s.
Seth Green, a prominent figure in the early fish commission movement, did some animal husbandry work on different strains of brook trout in this period and came up with a strain that grows to 13 or more inches long in three years. Supposedly the problem is the strain only lives for three years.
I say supposedly because this information is passed down to us by a younger colleague in the early fish commission days, Fred Mather.
Mather’s writings were cited frequently in the work of AJ McClain in his ubiquitous Fishing Encyclopedia.
The problem with Mather is, if you read his work, it becomes clear he had a horn out for Green. Mather pretty much blames Green and his widespread stocking of his three year brook trout for the sorry state of brook trout as early as the 1890s and early 1900s (Mather died around 1906, which is also the publication year of his final book.)
An interesting footnote to the story is that Mather is the guy on the American side who is responsible for brown trout being imported from Germany, courtesy of Frederick Felix Behr. The two also had worked together in the 1870s to bring the then very popular carp to the states.
On the American side, we sometimes refer to brown trout as von Behr trout in honor of Mather’s German friend. Mather often addressed him using the von honorific (which signifies baronhood). Though Behr was of such lineage, he preferred to be addressed as Herr, essentially Mr., and said as much in one of his letters to Mather.
As for the new Pennsylvania charr species vs a heritage strain with no hatchery lineage, I will be very interested to follow the discussion. Either way, it is a big deal because it is entirely possible a heritage strain could be used to repopulate Pennsylvania streams with brook trout (or whatever name they end up being assigned) to the end of seeing brook trout that are more robust, possibly grow bigger and, importantly, are better equipped to compete with brown trout. None of this is guaranteed, but a hopeful angler can certainly ponder the bright side prospects.
There is precedent for management of charr based on strains, especially with regard to lake trout. Three major strains are recognized, one from the Great Lakes, one from the great slave lake in Canada (if my memory is correct) and another whose origin escapes me.
Also, Atlantic salmon restoration projects of late have been giving very serious consideration about which strains to stock where, a switching strains when a particular project seems to stall.
All in all, though I’m not warm to a splitter approach to the findings, I am very pleased to hear about the discovery of a Pennsylvania strain/species of charr.
I agree that he is a splitter. And I also tend to agree with the lumpers.
IMHO, brook trout are all the same species. Different strains are found in various places, as you'd expect, but labeling them as different species seems like a stretch.
rustbeltwilds
Active member
i find it hard to believe that brook trout were totally wiped out from pa and that all are from hatchery stock now.
Nymph-wristed
Well-known member
Seem like there is a future market for streamside genetic testing kits to make sure one can still hate on invasive brown without being a hypocrite 😉
