What do you think of this.
The browns’ presence apparently bothered some influential members of the Virginia Council, who organized the BroundUp to rid the stream of a perceived nuisance.
This statement taken directly from the article pretty tells the story, it’s politics plain and simple. It’s not about what’s best for the stream or the public or what the public wants, but it’s what “some influential members” want. I know TU has been a fine organization but this kind of “stuff” was the reason I did not join recently when they sent me another invitation.
Two questions since you ask what I think.
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Are the brook trout native?
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Is it legal to kill the brown trout you catch? Or brook trout for that matter.
If the answer to #1 is “yes” then it is probably better for the stream and the native brook trout that the brown trout are caught and killed.
If the answer to #2 is “yes” then nobody has a gripe coming.
I don’t have a dog in this fight but others should not be scorned for participating in a lawful activity
fishbum
I disagree 100%. If the browns had not proven to be self-sustainable and required continued stocking, then yes. But they do not. They’ve shown they are self-sustainable and the current fish are wild fish.
If legal to do so, then so-be-it…same with the brookies. But that is not the goal here. The goal is for a handful of high-minded individuals pushing their preference.
Waters change…and environments morph as time goes by. To insist that the ONLY environmental answer is to go back to colonial times is not always the best answer. In this day and age when water quality is so much in question…the strongest fish will prevail. Once they’re naturally reproducing, removing them is no less a manipulation of the environment than the original stocking. IMO 
As presented in this article the assault on the brown trout population would seem to be unwarranted but I would like more information before condemning it. Is the brown trout population expanding into the headwaters and threatening the native brookies? Once we have removed the natural balance of an eco-system we often have little choice but to continue making adjustments. Though I would prefer to see those decisions made by fisheries managers rather than an NGO like TU it is also true that sometimes fisheries mangers can get too focused on pounds of catchable fish and lose sight of other management goals.
First, that stream is - well, was - historically a great place to get into large NATIVE brookies. Since the last few drought summers, the brookies have really taken a hit.
There are fewer and fewer places where native brook trout thrive, and more and more places where browns are establishing themselves. When these situations overlap in the same stream, the results usually favor the browns. If you want wild browns, fish your favorite east coast tailwaters. Leave the native char to finally reclaim some of their original range that we’ve decimated by mining, deforestation, development, other pollution and now piscivorous trout.
A no brainer.
And just to play devils advocate…what happens when all efforts to save the native Brookie fails and a fishable water never produces itself? Then what? Leave the waters basically devoid of fish? When a wild browntrout population has already proven itself?
I suggest - whether you’re an advocate of the devil or not - you check out the EBTJV…the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture…which is also an urgent priority for TU. Why threaten a native trout population with invasives knowing what we know now? Asian carp can survive and thrive in warm water fisheries, so I guess we should just leave them alone, too.
I have stated this before: TU is no Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. I no longer am a member and in most cases do not support them. My guess is that in the future they will become anti-fishing.
Throughout history, species of animals have become extinct. This was even the case before humans arrived. So with or without human involvement certain animals will not survive. The history of the world has shown this.
Point taken on the Carp. I guess I don’t see the brown trout as an invasive.
Would it not be for the brown, there are countless trout waters across the country that would now hold nothing but Fall Fish and Creek Chubs. Not to mention that many of the waters being labelled as “Brook trout” waters were unable to hold fish much larger than 5" year-to-year long before the brown trout arrived. And long before the folks wanting ot change things were even fishing those waters. I think it’s more on the lines of folks picking a favorite cause more than conservation efforts. But that’s just my 2-cents.
Sometimes conservation involves thinking beyond the narrow scopes of our own desire to catch trout from every conceivable trickle. The demise of brook trout streams is blood on OUR hands. If the brown trout had evolved to migrate from western Europe across the seas to the US, moving upstream past impassable barriers then the natural extinction argument might hold water. But it doesn’t for obvious reasons. Or is “evolution” a taboo term here? Even if you’re in that camp, in the Good Book we are charged with being the stewards of all creatures - and STILL we seem to screw this up routinely.
At the end of the day it’s this sort of spirited debate that gets us all involved so I guess we have to start somewhere.
Over the course of history, the hows and whys of extinction, and how and whys certain things survive where they do, creates much research and speculation… Virus’ and bacteria are being transported around the planet by various methods. Birds and other animals have been know to transport many different things throughout the planet. Storms and other weather related events have also made changes to our world. The planet is dynamic and alway changing naturally.
Man is just another natural part of animal extinction. However, humans being at the top of the food chain are very vulneralbe to becoming extinct also. And because we are in that position we do have a responsibility. But we have a greater responsibility for our survival. We probably will not survive without getting our hands dirty.
In a thousand years are historians going to write that we let millions of humans starve because we wanted to save a minnow or a lizard? Seems like in many cases our decisions are cruel and narrow minded.
If we took that responsibility seriously, millions - nay, a BILLION - humans wouldn’t already be starving.
There is a river in eastern Idaho where they have made it mandatory to kill any Rainbow trout because the Rainbows are hurting the native Cutthroat population. That goes against my grain so I will simply never fish that river. No one is going to tell me I HAVE to kill such a wonderful fish as a Rainbow, nor would they tell me to do the same for a Brown Trout. I simply would not fish that area either.
Larry —sagefisher—
Read the description of said event. It was restricted to a 3-day period and did not involve a kill mandate of any kind (i.e. purely volunteer-based). AND it’s being done within legal limits with respect to regulations. When your cuttthroats are gone, maybe something like this will have mattered. But who cares, it’s not going to happen in OUR lifetimes, right?
…“When your cuttthroats are gone, maybe something like this will have mattered. But who cares, it’s not going to happen in OUR lifetimes, right?”…
Actually, I don’t feel that it is as simple as that. our world is changing, in many more ways than just which trout happen to be found in a particular water. In many areas of the country, if it were not for brown trout, countless waters would be devoid of trout completely due to logging, mining, farming and development practices a century ago. Far more brook trout streams are threatened by development and farming practices than by the brown trout. Personally, where both are wild and self-sustaining…leave them be. Environmental issues will sort out which one makes it…and if things work out well, both will make it.
This is a very interesting and divisive topic.
As a confirmed blueliner in my area, i am definitely partial to native fish anywhere they are found. That said, in the stream in question, I’d tend to favor the brookie.
This in mind, I’m still opposed to this ‘witch hunt’ style of shoot-from-the-hip wildlife management, mainly because of the image it projects, and its obviously politically-charged inception. Rather, I’d prefer to see more of an educational campaign, explaining the reasoning as to why the local TU supports the harvest of the browns. In small streams, browns often out-compete resident populations of native brookies, and only on the smallest of streams (where the environment itself tends to prevent the browns from growing much larger (and by extension more voracious) than the brookies) have I ever seen the two species co-existing in a stable, naturally self-supporting balance.
So…I guess to summarize: no, I don’t oppose this effort…but I dont support it either. 
I understand your point - and it’s well taken. But the proof is in the pudding so to speak. Ideally these situations should be treated on a case-by-case basis. Using two Shenandoah NP streams as specific examples, the increase in percentage of browns in the total fish population (brook trout, brown trout) has had a quantifiable negative impact on numbers of brook trout. In this case, the NPS has initiated shocking the browns out to at least control their populations, such that the browns that are removed are relocated to delayed harvest streams and other waters that do not support brookies. I actually favor this approach over the killing of browns outright - they’re effectively recycled into at least one Valley spring creek and can hold over in another which has a DH section.
On the other hand, one of the waterways that border the Shenandoah NP has coexisting brookies and browns, with the browns having gained a foothold after a single stocking event in the 1960s. Anecdotally the brook trout numbers are lower than before introduction of the brown trout, but they’re certainly still there and reproducing - probably maintaining some sort of brown trout/brook trout equilibrium after so many years.
The problem with the stream mentioned in the article and at the beginning of this thread is that due to low water conditions for several consecutive summers, the native fish have been descending downstream to find flows that are still within a suitable temperature range and therefore oxygen supply. The brown trout are found primarily in those same lower reaches, so the brookies are a brown trout chow of sorts. They never had to compete with other piscivorous fish historically within the parts of stream that can sustain brookies. Drought summers are not a new challenge to these fish. Hungry fish-eating brown trout are. In this case, I’m not so sure leaving the browns to threaten natives is a good idea.
As to the sentiment about introducing trout into ditches that were completely or nearly depleted of fish due to environmental issues - as long as they’re not displacing a threatened species, not an issue. Creating a fishery out of a non-fishery is a great idea, but supplanting one with another seems asinine to me.
MFTG…Very well put. Thanks for the response.
Ralph
Ralph,
Shoot me a PM next time you make it down to VA. I’ll do the same next time I’m in your neck of the woods - we have friends in Summit (norf Jersey) but haven’t fished souf Jersey ever. Look forward to fishin with you sometime.
Marty