silverfox
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 4, 2006
- Messages
- 1,928
My take is that they have staff dedicated to native brook trout. I believe this is one of the reasons MD has done so much for brook trout as well. They have staff positions that are devoted to the species. Pennsylvania does not. It's worth mentioning that in Maryland, their budget and staff size is a fraction of PA's. How Pennsylvania doesn't have a brook trout specialist is mind-boggling.
I think The_Sasquatch is correct about the effort being localized in small areas. There's nothing wrong with that. What WV has done is established conservation watersheds for brook trout. They also have a conservation hatchery where they're working with wild fish broodstock to get hatchlings to repopulate extirpated streams. It's not to say that the entire state is a brook trout mecca and conservation zone and they do everything right from Charleston to PawPaw. Outside of those conservation watersheds, they're doing the same things as PA.
The thing is, there's nothing wrong with that, either. That's all we want to see in PA. You don't need to eradicate nonnative fish, stop stocking, make brookies C&R across the entire commonwealth, fix every perched culvert in the state, drop four million trees in the water, etc. to help brook trout. Just focus on strongholds and do meaningful things there. We have the maps that tell us where that is.
A targeted approach gives the appearance that the state is doing a lot for the species even if 90% of the state isn't managed the same way. It's worth mentioning, too that some of the issues Sasquatch mentions are the responsibility of the EPA, not WV DNR. The stocking practices are obviously all on DNR, but again, they've established entire large watersheds where they've suspended all those shenanigans for brook trout. Pennsylvania hasn't.
I think The_Sasquatch is correct about the effort being localized in small areas. There's nothing wrong with that. What WV has done is established conservation watersheds for brook trout. They also have a conservation hatchery where they're working with wild fish broodstock to get hatchlings to repopulate extirpated streams. It's not to say that the entire state is a brook trout mecca and conservation zone and they do everything right from Charleston to PawPaw. Outside of those conservation watersheds, they're doing the same things as PA.
The thing is, there's nothing wrong with that, either. That's all we want to see in PA. You don't need to eradicate nonnative fish, stop stocking, make brookies C&R across the entire commonwealth, fix every perched culvert in the state, drop four million trees in the water, etc. to help brook trout. Just focus on strongholds and do meaningful things there. We have the maps that tell us where that is.
A targeted approach gives the appearance that the state is doing a lot for the species even if 90% of the state isn't managed the same way. It's worth mentioning, too that some of the issues Sasquatch mentions are the responsibility of the EPA, not WV DNR. The stocking practices are obviously all on DNR, but again, they've established entire large watersheds where they've suspended all those shenanigans for brook trout. Pennsylvania hasn't.