Native Brook Trout Reintroduction

[pcray1231]

I don't struggle at all. Yes I am pro-brookie but I am not anti-brown. Cleaner, better water, is cleaner, better water regardless of the species that takes over.

I'd rather it be brookies. I'd love to discuss management techniques to help it be brookies. But in no way, shape or form would I consider the water quality improvements to be a detriment even if it does benefit browns at the detriment of brookies.

 

[sarce]

I don't struggle at all. Yes I am pro-brookie but I am not anti-brown. Cleaner, better water, is cleaner, better water regardless of the species that takes over.

I'd rather it be brookies. I'd love to discuss management techniques to help it be brookies. But in no way, shape or form would I consider the water quality improvements to be a detriment even if it does benefit browns at the detriment of brookies.

I agree with this, despite my desire to restore brook trout populations.

There are still many opportunities for AMD remediation of currently dead streams that will massively improve water quality without raising the pH enough for browns. But I believe that the maximum water quality improvement should be pursued (and likely will be pursued - no one is going to fund a project that purposely doesn't achieve the most benefit possible).

 

[silverfox]

I don't struggle at all. Yes I am pro-brookie but I am not anti-brown. Cleaner, better water, is cleaner, better water regardless of the species that takes over.

I'd rather it be brookies. I'd love to discuss management techniques to help it be brookies. But in no way, shape or form would I consider the water quality improvements to be a detriment even if it does benefit browns at the detriment of brookies.

I'm not "anti-brown" per se. I just wish we had more allopatric brook trout water. Watching a stream switch from mostly brook trout to mostly brown trout really sucked too. I wish they just lived in harmony and gathered around the waterfall and sang kumbaya, but I don't believe that's the case in all cases.

It's tough when you set out to catch brook trout and all you want to catch is brook trout and it's this hard to find allopatric brook trout in PA. If I wanted to catch browns I'd go to a brown trout stream and catch browns. If I wanted to go catch stocked rainbows, I could go catch stocked rainbows. In either case, I could go pretty much anywhere near home.

I think that's an even tougher pill to swallow when you drive a fair distance to fish in the brook trout mecca of PA (Potter Co.) and it too has browns everywhere. I have brown trout fatigue. I know most people are happy to catch "trout". Especially wild ones. I wish I was just blissfully ignorant of the relationship. I wish I'd have never looked deeper into any of this. That's not how I'm wired, unfortunately.

I certainly won't let any of that deter me from helping restore AMD water, or improve habitat, or continue advocating for brook trout water. Though in my particular case, I can't, and won't get involved in environmental improvement projects on sympatric populations unless nonnative species removal is part of the plan.

I wish there was some magic bullet in habitat work that could help solve this problem. I really just don't see what that is or could be.

 

[wildtrout2]

I'm not "anti-brown" per se. I just wish we had more allopatric brook trout water. Watching a stream switch from mostly brook trout to mostly brown trout really sucked too. I wish they just lived in harmony and gathered around the waterfall and sang kumbaya, but I don't believe that's the case in all cases.

It's tough when you set out to catch brook trout and all you want to catch is brook trout and it's this hard to find allopatric brook trout in PA. If I wanted to catch browns I'd go to a brown trout stream and catch browns. If I wanted to go catch stocked rainbows, I could go catch stocked rainbows. In either case, I could go pretty much anywhere near home.

I think that's an even tougher pill to swallow when you drive a fair distance to fish in the brook trout mecca of PA (Potter Co.) and it too has browns everywhere. I have brown trout fatigue. I know most people are happy to catch "trout". Especially wild ones. I wish I was just blissfully ignorant of the relationship. I wish I'd have never looked deeper into any of this. That's not how I'm wired, unfortunately.

I certainly won't let any of that deter me from helping restore AMD water, or improve habitat, or continue advocating for brook trout water. Though in my particular case, I can't, and won't get involved in environmental improvement projects on sympatric populations unless nonnative species removal is part of the plan.

I wish there was some magic bullet in habitat work that could help solve this problem. I really just don't see what that is or could be.

I guess you'll have to be satisfied with stream "sections" that contain nothing but natives. I've found a couple of good ones, where physical barriers keep it brookies ONLY. At least for now. And to be honest, they pretty much get my undivided attention. I've always been partial to our state fish.

 

[moon1284]

I'm not "anti-brown" per se. I just wish we had more allopatric brook trout water. Watching a stream switch from mostly brook trout to mostly brown trout really sucked too. I wish they just lived in harmony and gathered around the waterfall and sang kumbaya, but I don't believe that's the case in all cases.

It's tough when you set out to catch brook trout and all you want to catch is brook trout and it's this hard to find allopatric brook trout in PA. If I wanted to catch browns I'd go to a brown trout stream and catch browns. If I wanted to go catch stocked rainbows, I could go catch stocked rainbows. In either case, I could go pretty much anywhere near home.

I think that's an even tougher pill to swallow when you drive a fair distance to fish in the brook trout mecca of PA (Potter Co.) and it too has browns everywhere. I have brown trout fatigue. I know most people are happy to catch "trout". Especially wild ones. I wish I was just blissfully ignorant of the relationship. I wish I'd have never looked deeper into any of this. That's not how I'm wired, unfortunately.

I certainly won't let any of that deter me from helping restore AMD water, or improve habitat, or continue advocating for brook trout water. Though in my particular case, I can't, and won't get involved in environmental improvement projects on sympatric populations unless nonnative species removal is part of the plan.

I wish there was some magic bullet in habitat work that could help solve this problem. I really just don't see what that is or could be.

There is no magic bullet. The habitat is better for browns. When the habitat is better for brook trout it will flip. Brown trout do not automatically outcompete brook trout.

 

[silverfox]

There is no magic bullet. The habitat is better for browns. When the habitat is better for brook trout it will flip. Brown trout do not automatically outcompete brook trout.

When the habitat is better for brook trout it will flip? Do tell us how we achieve that. I'm sure there are more than a few people who would be very interested in learning how this could be acheived.

"automatically outcompete"? No, I'd say they don't out-compete brook trout in all cases. Given the opportunity to, they will.

 

[moon1284]

You do that by continuing to improve habitat and letting nature work over time.

 

[silverfox]

You do that by continuing to improve habitat and letting nature work over time.

Where did you hear this? I'd love to see an example of where we've done habitat work and it caused a species shift.

 

[moon1284]

Where did you hear this? I'd love to see an example of where we've done habitat work and it caused a species shift.

Read the last 5 words in my post.

 

[silverfox]

Read the last 5 words in my post.

So there's no evidence that it works. Just "trust me"?

 

[moon1284]

So there's no evidence that it works. Just "trust me"?

Correct just trust me.

There is no evidence that nature heals itself in time.

 

[Fish Sticks]

I don't struggle at all. Yes I am pro-brookie but I am not anti-brown. Cleaner, better water, is cleaner, better water regardless of the species that takes over.

I'd rather it be brookies. I'd love to discuss management techniques to help it be brookies. But in no way, shape or form would I consider the water quality improvements to be a detriment even if it does benefit browns at the detriment of brookies.

Yea I’m deff not anti brown either, Real brown trout that come from their native range are unmistakably beautiful.

They also ironically face the same invasive species problems brookies do here in the states.

Mapping the Establishment and Invasiveness Potential of Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in Turkey: With Special Emphasis on the Conservation of Native Salmonids

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) has become by far the most frequently farmed freshwater fish species in Turkey, whereas very little is known about its establishment and invasiveness potential. We explored this potential through a combination of Maxent habitat suitability model and the...

www.frontiersin.org

The only issue with “restoring” a stream with the idea of brown trout persisting on after you do projects is the question of what are you restoring for?

So many people think that stream restorations are aimed at the trout that they love when in all reality no one besides the volunteers cares about the actual trout. Sure the grant funders are happy to say they are helping the trout but if it doesn’t improve the TMDL big time most grant funders in the Susquehanna basin aren’t going to fund you.

So we all assume these projects are for the trout but the funders get their reductions in nitrogen, phos, and sediment and what ever happens beyond that happens. The truth is the brown trout act similarly to the AMD, but to a lesser extent of course, in terms of limiting populations of the target species the restoration was meant to help in the first place like sculpins, mayflies, darters, native brook, hellbenders, crayfish, and many more. They impair their populations as seen below.

-Hellbenders are harmed by invasive trout they have not evolved chemical signaling defenses against. https://ag.purdue.edu/extension/hellbender/Documents/Gall_InnatePredator.pdf

-sculpins
-“ Some salmonids may also induce behavioral shifts in sculpins, leading to reduced foraging. For example, in stream enclosures, growth of large sculpins was reduced in the presence of nonnative brown trout Salrno trutta but not in the presence of native brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis despite a lack of difference in diet composition or invertebrate availability among treatments (Zimrnerman and Vondracek 2007, this issue).
“
“Species introductions have adversely affected a number of sculpin populations via predation (White and Harvey 2001),”

ja_adams013.pdf (usda.gov)

-Endangered candy darter

WV DNR seeks bait, stocking changes to protect endangered candy darter

For anglers who use minnows for trout bait, a brightly colored 3-inch fish could spell trouble.

www.wvgazettemail.com

-Endangered guyandotte crayfish harmed by brown trout an WV stopping stocking them overtop of populations.

John McCoy: WV's brown-trout fishing diminished, but for a worthy cause

The past two years haven’t been the greatest for West Virginians who like to fish for brown trout.

www.wvgazettemail.com

- mayflies: Invasive brown trout caused trophic cascade by depleting native galaxids, altering may flow behavior, and algae blooms that in eloped the bottom of the streams resulted. Shows how powerful the food web disturbances can be.

Interactions between fish, grazing invertebrates and algae in a New Zealand stream: a trophic cascade mediated by fish-induced changes to grazer behaviour? - PubMed

Experiments in laboratory stream channels compared the behaviour of Deleatidium mayfly nymphs in the absence of fish with that in the presence of either native common river galaxias (Galaxias vulgaris Stokell) or introduced brown trout (Salmo trutta L.). Galaxias present similar predation risks...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

-brown trout reduce sensitive mayfly species populations.

Impact of introduced trout on Nesameletus mayfly populations measured using electrofishing | Request PDF

Request PDF | Impact of introduced trout on Nesameletus mayfly populations measured using electrofishing | Despite the widespread introduction of salmonid fishes for sports fisheries their effects on recipient invertebrate communities are not well... | Find, read and cite all the research you...

www.researchgate.net

In summation, brown trout disrupt entire food webs as invaders outside their native range similar to AMD but to a lesser extent I would guess. So we look at the end out come as just clean water with either brown or brook trout as anglers. However, if brown trout are left it really is JUST clean water in the end because the native food web will still be limited to an extent by the invasive brown trout. The bay appreciates it, the PhD who devoted his life to hellbenders is happy the water is cleaner but sees it as only a half measure because his larval hellbenders are getting eaten. Not saying we can remove in even close to a majority of the scenarios, I’m just highlighting what’s at stake in the situations where you could. The reality is most of theses browns are here to stay but to preserve what’s truly special(intact food web) in areas where we can, we have to realize that clean water alone won’t save us and what the real cost of invasive species are. Clean cold water and great habitat hasn’t saved kettle, pine, cedar, and many others. You can’t get it any better than up there and invasive species are still winning the battle and so much more than brook trout are being lost it’s the destruction of an entire ecosystem.

 

[silverfox]

Correct just trust me.

There is no evidence that nature heals itself in time.

Yeah, not getting a warm and fuzzy feeling about this one. I don't know that I've ever heard anyone suggest that "nature will heal itself" from a biotic standpoint once you've disrupted the species composition to the point we have.

It also just doesn't make a lot of sense frankly. There's only so much we can do with stream manipulations to affect morphology. We can tinker with hydrology, habitat, and the riparian zone, but the habitat preferences between these species is so similar that I don't see how it could ever cause a reversal in top-level species composition.

It can improve carrying capacity or maybe cause the more sensitive species to hang on for a little while longer, but I don't see it causing extirpation of the invader. You could do that by helping things along by manually removing a large portion of the population to the point that they're outnumbered in addition to the habitat work, but habitat work by itself isn't a panacea for native fish restoration when other competing nonnative species are present.

Sounds a lot like "do all this work to benefit this thing I'm personally obsessed with under the guise of conservation so that this thing I like benefits while I fool you into thinking it benefits the environment or the native species my favorite thing displaced.".

 

[wildtrout2]

Yea I’m deff not anti brown either, Real brown trout that come from their native range are unmistakably beautiful.
View attachment 1641224942

They also ironically face the same invasive species problems brookies do here in the states.

Mapping the Establishment and Invasiveness Potential of Rainbow Trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) in Turkey: With Special Emphasis on the Conservation of Native Salmonids

Rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) has become by far the most frequently farmed freshwater fish species in Turkey, whereas very little is known about its establishment and invasiveness potential. We explored this potential through a combination of Maxent habitat suitability model and the...

www.frontiersin.org

The only issue with “restoring” a stream with the idea of brown trout persisting on after you do projects is the question of what are you restoring for?

So many people think that stream restorations are aimed at the trout that they love when in all reality no one besides the volunteers cares about the actual trout. Sure the grant funders are happy to say they are helping the trout but if it doesn’t improve the TMDL big time most grant funders in the Susquehanna basin aren’t going to fund you.

So we all assume these projects are for the trout but the funders get their reductions in nitrogen, phos, and sediment and what ever happens beyond that happens. The truth is the brown trout act similarly to the AMD, but to a lesser extent of course, in terms of limiting populations of the target species the restoration was meant to help in the first place like sculpins, mayflies, darters, native brook, hellbenders, crayfish, and many more. They impair their populations as seen below.

-Hellbenders are harmed by invasive trout they have not evolved chemical signaling defenses against. https://ag.purdue.edu/extension/hellbender/Documents/Gall_InnatePredator.pdf

-sculpins
-“ Some salmonids may also induce behavioral shifts in sculpins, leading to reduced foraging. For example, in stream enclosures, growth of large sculpins was reduced in the presence of nonnative brown trout Salrno trutta but not in the presence of native brook trout Salvelinus fontinalis despite a lack of difference in diet composition or invertebrate availability among treatments (Zimrnerman and Vondracek 2007, this issue).
“
“Species introductions have adversely affected a number of sculpin populations via predation (White and Harvey 2001),”

ja_adams013.pdf (usda.gov)

-Endangered candy darter

WV DNR seeks bait, stocking changes to protect endangered candy darter

For anglers who use minnows for trout bait, a brightly colored 3-inch fish could spell trouble.

www.wvgazettemail.com

-Endangered guyandotte crayfish harmed by brown trout an WV stopping stocking them overtop of populations.

John McCoy: WV's brown-trout fishing diminished, but for a worthy cause

The past two years haven’t been the greatest for West Virginians who like to fish for brown trout.

www.wvgazettemail.com

- mayflies: Invasive brown trout caused trophic cascade by depleting native galaxids, altering may flow behavior, and algae blooms that in eloped the bottom of the streams resulted. Shows how powerful the food web disturbances can be.

Interactions between fish, grazing invertebrates and algae in a New Zealand stream: a trophic cascade mediated by fish-induced changes to grazer behaviour? - PubMed

Experiments in laboratory stream channels compared the behaviour of Deleatidium mayfly nymphs in the absence of fish with that in the presence of either native common river galaxias (Galaxias vulgaris Stokell) or introduced brown trout (Salmo trutta L.). Galaxias present similar predation risks...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

-brown trout reduce sensitive mayfly species populations.

Impact of introduced trout on Nesameletus mayfly populations measured using electrofishing | Request PDF

Request PDF | Impact of introduced trout on Nesameletus mayfly populations measured using electrofishing | Despite the widespread introduction of salmonid fishes for sports fisheries their effects on recipient invertebrate communities are not well... | Find, read and cite all the research you...

www.researchgate.net

In summation, brown trout disrupt entire food webs as invaders outside their native range similar to AMD but to a lesser extent I would guess. So we look at the end out come as just clean water with either brown or brook trout as anglers. However, if brown trout are left it really is JUST clean water in the end because the native food web will still be limited to an extent by the invasive brown trout. The bay appreciates it, the PhD who devoted his life to hellbenders is happy the water is cleaner but sees it as only a half measure because his larval hellbenders are getting eaten. Not saying we can remove in even close to a majority of the scenarios, I’m just highlighting what’s at stake in the situations where you could. The reality is most of theses browns are here to stay but to preserve what’s truly special(intact food web) in areas where we can, we have to realize that clean water alone won’t save us and what the real cost of invasive species are. Clean cold water and great habitat hasn’t saved kettle, pine, cedar, and many others. You can’t get it any better than up there and invasive species are still winning the battle and so much more than brook trout are being lost it’s the destruction of an entire ecosystem.

At first I thought that trout was fake, then I thought it was a Yamame trout. lol

 

[Fish Sticks]

At first I thought that trout was fake, then I thought it was a Yamame trout. lol

Just a native Italian brown trout, we are so used to American mutt brown trout that we forget these things are real species too with their own regional-local adaptive genetics and diversity. Diversity to such an extent in their. Stove range there is a huge argument over subspecies. Check this one out.

These are what actual real brown trout look like. If you catch enough inbred stocker lineage wild rainbows or American mutt invasive brown trout you forget their real animals that actually went through an evolutionary process in other parts of the world and earned their place instead of relaying on British and American nautical human handouts.

A dilution of evolutionary adaption by hatchery inbreeding and introduction of different strains causing outbreeding depression results in the American brown trout which lacks a role in the food web besides besieging it. It is a confused bull in an ecological China shop toppling the entire thing. Much different than this evolutionary fine tuned native brown trout that is a valuable piece of its own food web and serves a purpose in it, interactions with co-evolved species are sustainable not chaotic causing booms and busts in it.

Just beautiful, look at those red spots. Again it’s actually part of the food web in Europe, it has value.

 

[silverfox]

It's only with fish that we feel the need to bring the species to the angler, rather than the angler going to the species. I guess because they're confined to the water. Out of sight and out of mind to most non-anglers. Probably because even a lot of environmentalists aren't even aware of the issues facing freshwater fish. They're cold, slimy, ugly things that lurk in streams and lakes, rather than fluffy cute critters frolicking in the fields.

Then within the angling community, there are few that care to look deeper than which ones generate the most enjoyment on the end of our lines or garner the most likes on Instagram. Freshwater fish conservation is probably the most esoteric animal conservation on the planet.

 

[moon1284]

Just a native Italian brown trout, we are so used to American mutt brown trout that we forget these things are real species too with their own regional-local adaptive genetics and diversity. Diversity to such an extent in their. Stove range there is a huge argument over subspecies. Check this one out. View attachment 1641224943

These are what actual real brown trout look like. If you catch enough inbred stocker lineage wild rainbows or American mutt invasive brown trout you forget their real animals that actually went through an evolutionary process in other parts of the world and earned their place instead of relaying on British and American nautical human handouts.

View attachment 1641224944


A dilution of evolutionary adaption by hatchery inbreeding and introduction of different strains causing outbreeding depression results in the American brown trout which lacks a role in the food web besides besieging it. It is a confused bull in an ecological China shop toppling the entire thing. Much different than this evolutionary fine tuned native brown trout that is a valuable piece of its own food web and serves a purpose in it, interactions with co-evolved species are sustainable not chaotic causing booms and busts in it.

View attachment 1641224945


Just beautiful, look at those red spots. Again it’s actually part of the food web in Europe, it has value.

View attachment 1641224946

You're 2nd pic from the bottom is a marble trout, not a brown trout.

Below is a native BT from Norway. It looks like nothing I have ever seen before. Absolutely breathtaking.

 

[Fish Sticks]

It's only with fish that we feel the need to bring the species to the angler, rather than the angler going to the species. I guess because they're confined to the water. Out of sight and out of mind to most non-anglers. Probably because even a lot of environmentalists aren't even aware of the issues facing freshwater fish. They're cold, slimy, ugly things that lurk in streams and lakes, rather than fluffy cute critters frolicking in the fields.

Then within the angling community, there are few that care to look deeper than which ones generate the most enjoyment on the end of our lines or garner the most likes on Instagram. Freshwater fish conservation is probably the most esoteric animal conservation on the planet.

if hunters wanted opportunities

You're 2nd pic from the bottom is a marble trout, not a brown trout.

Below is a native BT from Norway. It looks like nothing I have ever seen before. Absolutely breathtaking.

View attachment 1641224947

i'm fully aware that people call those marble trout, still Salmo Trutta unless you a splitter.

 

[Fish Sticks]

people also call this a Bosnian soft mouth trout, but its a brown trout.

 

[Fish Sticks]

looks more like a fall fish than a brown trout but people call it belvica trout but its still salmo trutta