How about Reed Canary Grass? Invasive or not?
Whats wrong with this picture-by Bob Mallard: TU/Trout magazine’s troubling messaging on what passes as conservation.
- Thread starter Fish Sticks
- Start date
redietz
Well-known member
Brook trout do just fine in streams where they're well suited, and can compete well with browns. Just fish the Rockies or the Sierras some time. Their real problems are a warming climate and stream degradation due to development. Get rid of the humans and bring back the Ice Age and brook trout will completely eradicate browns.
Whether you like it or not, browns are better suited to most of the streams where they flourish. And more power to them.
wildtrout2
Well-known member
My bad, I forgot it was on the Natural Repo list, so it had to be surveyed. Any idea when it was done?
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
Chesapeake bay guy tells me it is
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
Lot to unpack there. As someone who has read many peer reviewed articles on this topic and discussed the findings with fisheries scientists, I’ll say that they would tell you we have the answers to how this stuff actually works.
We always blame the stream and say we need a time machine to go back but the truth is in many cases the stream just isn’t brook trouts biggest issue. Slate cedar and many more where brown trout have gotten a foot hold in and are shifting away from or eliminating brook trout runnoff state forest full of mature hemlocks and undisturbed wilderness.
We prove the atream wasn’t the deal
Breaker all the time south of here when brown trout get removed above a barrier where there is no brook trout and a reintroduction establishes a healthy population where there was none. We haveold growth forests in pa where browns have lished out brookies and orange crapholes full of AmD browns can’t live in that have brookies. So much for fragile species.
Where cannot do removal(the vast majority of atreams) simply stopping stocking can make a brook trout population about to disappear come back to an extent even if there is wild brown trout present sometimes.
Now in that case if both species exist in a stream every brown trout is one less brook trout or more that stream cannot support because these streams have max carrying capacities and can only sustain so many fish. This reduced number has negative conservation genetic implications I wont get into.
We know that when brown trout are present in a brook trout stream the effects fall on the spectrum between harming that population and eliminating the population. Is the stream a deal breaker sometimes, sure. But its the case alot less often than we think.
When I wrote the fly fishermen article I t and addendum with links to over 50 peer reviewed articles people could read because we so have a tendency to get tunnel vision on streams and water quality. These are important but so often we ignore whats in the stream with brook trout when thats one of the biggest issue.
Works Cited: Sources From James Suleski's Story - Fly Fisherman
Links and sources for his article on watershed-wide management and why we need to stop stocking invasive species.
www.flyfisherman.com
Pennsylvania Isn't Doing Enough for its Floundering Native Brook Trout - Fly Fisherman
Disjointed habitat improvements won't save Pennsylvania's brook trout. We need watershed-wide management, and we need to stop stocking invasive species.
www.flyfisherman.com
tomgamber
Well-known member
Picture?
Brown trout do not have a "foothold" in these streams. They have had populations in these streams for 100 years or so. That's not a "foothold" situation.
The same is true for Kettle, the Sinnemahonings, Lycoming, Loyalsock drainages, etc.
The brown trout were introduced in these streams beginning in the 1880s, and were widely distributed by the 1920s.
In the 1970s when I first began fishing these streams, there were brown trout all through these watersheds. Their distribution was about the same as now. The brown trout had spread throughout these watersheds a long time before that.
Ending stocking over native brook trout allows the brook trout populations to increase, so that should be done.
But focusing on the dangers of introduction and establishment of brown trout populations, AS IF that had not already happened a long time ago, is not an accurate portrayal of the situation.
dudemanspecial
Well-known member
There are many places that brown trout have already become established to the point of no return and have created wonderful wild trout fisheries. These waterways also need conservation efforts so they can continue to prosper.
It is my opinion that posting things like this actually hurts your cause. It is nothing but ridiculous virtue signaling and makes me take everything else you say less seriously because you seem like an extremist.
I call it the PETA effect.
It is my opinion that posting things like this actually hurts your cause. It is nothing but ridiculous virtue signaling and makes me take everything else you say less seriously because you seem like an extremist.
I call it the PETA effect.
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Fish Sticks
Well-known member
I wasn’t talking about a recent foothold I was talking about just based on the streams suitability. People don’t understand our lifetime can be a fraction of the time these shifts take. And yes you actually should think of continua stocking as introduction effort or propagule orrssure regardless because streams change, AMD goes away, temps go up, to thinkmofnit as static is a mistake. Stocking can be an introduction in 2023 actually. Look at kratzer run and what happened there. You take away a chemical barrier and stock your going to get establishment much more likley.
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Fish Sticks
Well-known member
First yes we will have water ways that are managed for brown teout ajd protected thats not conservation though just like a bake sale for jeff bezos isnt charity. Brown trout already took over planet earth, what you describe as “conservation” is fisheries enhancement and no one is gunning for brown trout removal in those streams.
Second its sad when trying to stop extinctions and extirpations of native fish and amphibians/ listening to fisheries scientists is labeled “virtue signaling” due to extreme bias towards an invasive species and fear of loss of personal preference or convenience. FWS, USGS, DCNR, must be virtue signaling too.
What hurts the cause is ignoring the cause. With increased awareness I have seen support for wild native fish in the past two years like never before and so have others.
This is what you said: " Slate cedar and many more where brown trout have gotten a foot hold in and are shifting away from or eliminating brook trout runnoff state forest full of mature hemlocks and undisturbed wilderness."
That is an inaccurate description of the situation. Many people won't notice your inaccurate descriptions. But people who with knowledge on these topics WILL notice.
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
First the second half of that sentence i. That frame is meant to describe other streams besides slate and cedar that have faster shifts and losses evidenced by my use of “and many” /“eliminating” because obviously there still brook trout in cedar and slate right? And It is an accurate description if you look at it in the time span there were at one point just brook trout, brown trout were introduced, they occupy much of those watesheds now, some streams in them still have mostly brook trout, as temperatures increase as forecasted we know that will likely favor a shift to some extent. This has played out over nearing a century in a half, was there more brook trout in there in 1910, 1930, 1950? There are stages of invasion you can’t say that brown trout were introduced and nothing changed since then and nothing will change with a warming cljmate the idea that there is some durable stable static brown trout status quo is ludacris.
We know it has changed, if you look at the predictions of trout habitat loss over all with climate change and continued brown trout introduction on slate runs door step you really don’t think that stream is in the middle of a shift from what change has already happened (however long ago) to the future, you think this is just it, the end, we have reached tota static equilibrium despite chnageing conditions???
dudemanspecial
Well-known member
Your define conservation to fit your narrative.
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
Wildlife conservation refers to the practice of protecting wild species and their habitats in order to maintain healthy wildlife species or populations and to restore, protect or enhance natural ecosystems.
So your telling me I’m coming up with my own definition but that redesigning ecosystems to suit the expansion of a top 30 worlds worst invasive species that has documented harms on native amphibians, fish, crustaceans, macros world wide and causes a net decreasenin biodiversity ajd ecosystem instability/trolhic cascades is conservation?
Tigereye
Well-known member
About Trout Unlimited - Trout Unlimited
To bring together diverse interests to care for and recover rivers and streams so our children can experience the joy of wild and native trout and salmon.
www.tu.org
dudemanspecial
Well-known member
Yes I am telling you that.
Fish Sticks
Well-known member
case and point with the long term effects of messaging like that magazine cover in a conservation nonnprofits written communication to its memebers. It makes people that honestly believe the above
dudemanspecial
Well-known member
Case in point you are assuming something to support your narrative.
We can play this game all day but it's not going to get anyone anywhere.
I totally support brook trout conservation. I am not going to support acting like wild brown trout are the devil. We are way past that point. There has to be common ground to have progress. Extremism doesn't support common ground and doesn't help. Your voice gets ignored by sensible folk.
hooker-of-men
Well-known member
Speaking for myself, it was actually the messaging on Bob Mallard's website that lead me to believe the world should be fashioned to suit the expansion of invasive wild brown trout. Ready to catch some hogs!
