afishinado
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Staff member
FYI, interesting article on the resortation of brook trout in the Great Smoky Mtns Natl Park:
Biologists give new life to brook trout
COSBY, Tenn. -- Looking as if they were prospecting for treasure, four men wearing waders and wielding long-handled nets and white buckets clambered up Cosby Creek in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The treasure they sought wasn't gems or gold but a precious commodity nonetheless. They were collecting the park's only native trout species, the Southern Appalachian brook trout.
Park fish biologist Steve Moore led the way, poking an electroshocking pole into the swift-flowing stream. The device produced a 500-volt, 0.6-amp charge that knocked out the brookies but didn't harm them. Moore's colleagues scooped up the stunned fish and deposited them in the buckets. Soon frisky again, the diminutive brookies measured 5 to 8 inches long.
The captive brookies in the next few hours would go through a piscatorial equivalent of an alien abduction. They would ride 30 miles to the south in the dark tank of a state hatchery truck and reemerge in sun-dappled Lynn Camp Prong in the Tremont area. These and other found ing fish eventually will repopulate an 81/2-mile section of the stream in what Moore said is the park's single biggest brook trout restoration.
"Some of them won't survive the winter," Moore said. "But if the older fish spawn and then die, and their progeny hatch out, and they will, we're still accomplishing our goal, which is establishing a reproducing population of brook trout."
Foreign trout
For eons brook trout ruled the streams in what is now the 520,000-acre park and could be found at elevations as low as 1,600 feet, Moore said.
But extensive logging beginning in the early 1900s damaged streams and eliminated brookies. To revive sport fishing, land managers stocked rainbows from the West and northern brook trout. The park's own stocking program continued to run until 1975. Now mostly limited to high-elevation streams, brook trout have lost 75 percent of their range to the more aggressive rainbows.
Rainbows had owned Lynn Camp Prong for three-quarters of a century, Moore estimated. Converting the section back to brook waters meant getting rid of the squatters. The stream qualified for restoration because of a 40-foot-high cascade at the downstream end of the section, a necessary natural barrier that will prevent rainbows from returning upstream.
The park first let anglers for two weeks last fall catch unlimited rainbows (the legal limit otherwise is five a day with a minimum size of 7 inches). Moore said 130 anglers took 564 trout. Then biologists treated the stream with the chemical antimycin, killing the remaining 8,000 to 10,000.
Black bears sniffed out a free lunch and reaped a bonanza of sushi. Moore said one day he saw, at different times, five bears slosh upstream, Alaska style, feeding on dying rainbows.
Did anglers support the purging of rainbows?
"Some hate to lose this stream for a couple of years," said Byron Begley, who owns a Townsend, Tenn., fly-fishing shop and founded the Little River chapter of Trout Unlimited, a national conservation group. "Some objected to killing the rainbows. Most favor a brookies stream."
Fish costs
Restoring Lynn Camp Prong isn't cheap. Moore estimated the multiyear cost, including park personnel salaries, at $300,000. Of that, some $224,000 came from cash, donations and volunteer time. The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture, a partnership dedicated brook trout conservation, contributed $100,000, and the Little River chapter of Trout Unlimited gave $17,000.
At Tremont, biologists transferred the vagabond fish to clear plastic bags with chlorine-free ice. They pumped the bags full of oxygen, put the finny cargo on an ATV and released a bag of fish every 60 yards or so. Once in their new digs, the brookies quickly scattered to the safety of rock shadows.
Moore said another 1,200 to 1,400 brookies will be collected and released into Lynn Camp Prong this fall. Stream monitoring will follow. It may be four to seven years before fishing can resume, depending on when the stream population reaches a sustainable density.
"If we get it back up to where it's 1,800 to 2,000 trout per mile, we may open it up," he said.
The restoration program not only enhances the biological integrity of the park but also helps conserve the genetically distinct fish for future generations.
"To me, they're kind of like our heirlooms," Moore said.
Link to source: http://www.catskillflies.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4227
Biologists give new life to brook trout
COSBY, Tenn. -- Looking as if they were prospecting for treasure, four men wearing waders and wielding long-handled nets and white buckets clambered up Cosby Creek in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The treasure they sought wasn't gems or gold but a precious commodity nonetheless. They were collecting the park's only native trout species, the Southern Appalachian brook trout.
Park fish biologist Steve Moore led the way, poking an electroshocking pole into the swift-flowing stream. The device produced a 500-volt, 0.6-amp charge that knocked out the brookies but didn't harm them. Moore's colleagues scooped up the stunned fish and deposited them in the buckets. Soon frisky again, the diminutive brookies measured 5 to 8 inches long.
The captive brookies in the next few hours would go through a piscatorial equivalent of an alien abduction. They would ride 30 miles to the south in the dark tank of a state hatchery truck and reemerge in sun-dappled Lynn Camp Prong in the Tremont area. These and other found ing fish eventually will repopulate an 81/2-mile section of the stream in what Moore said is the park's single biggest brook trout restoration.
"Some of them won't survive the winter," Moore said. "But if the older fish spawn and then die, and their progeny hatch out, and they will, we're still accomplishing our goal, which is establishing a reproducing population of brook trout."
Foreign trout
For eons brook trout ruled the streams in what is now the 520,000-acre park and could be found at elevations as low as 1,600 feet, Moore said.
But extensive logging beginning in the early 1900s damaged streams and eliminated brookies. To revive sport fishing, land managers stocked rainbows from the West and northern brook trout. The park's own stocking program continued to run until 1975. Now mostly limited to high-elevation streams, brook trout have lost 75 percent of their range to the more aggressive rainbows.
Rainbows had owned Lynn Camp Prong for three-quarters of a century, Moore estimated. Converting the section back to brook waters meant getting rid of the squatters. The stream qualified for restoration because of a 40-foot-high cascade at the downstream end of the section, a necessary natural barrier that will prevent rainbows from returning upstream.
The park first let anglers for two weeks last fall catch unlimited rainbows (the legal limit otherwise is five a day with a minimum size of 7 inches). Moore said 130 anglers took 564 trout. Then biologists treated the stream with the chemical antimycin, killing the remaining 8,000 to 10,000.
Black bears sniffed out a free lunch and reaped a bonanza of sushi. Moore said one day he saw, at different times, five bears slosh upstream, Alaska style, feeding on dying rainbows.
Did anglers support the purging of rainbows?
"Some hate to lose this stream for a couple of years," said Byron Begley, who owns a Townsend, Tenn., fly-fishing shop and founded the Little River chapter of Trout Unlimited, a national conservation group. "Some objected to killing the rainbows. Most favor a brookies stream."
Fish costs
Restoring Lynn Camp Prong isn't cheap. Moore estimated the multiyear cost, including park personnel salaries, at $300,000. Of that, some $224,000 came from cash, donations and volunteer time. The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture, a partnership dedicated brook trout conservation, contributed $100,000, and the Little River chapter of Trout Unlimited gave $17,000.
At Tremont, biologists transferred the vagabond fish to clear plastic bags with chlorine-free ice. They pumped the bags full of oxygen, put the finny cargo on an ATV and released a bag of fish every 60 yards or so. Once in their new digs, the brookies quickly scattered to the safety of rock shadows.
Moore said another 1,200 to 1,400 brookies will be collected and released into Lynn Camp Prong this fall. Stream monitoring will follow. It may be four to seven years before fishing can resume, depending on when the stream population reaches a sustainable density.
"If we get it back up to where it's 1,800 to 2,000 trout per mile, we may open it up," he said.
The restoration program not only enhances the biological integrity of the park but also helps conserve the genetically distinct fish for future generations.
"To me, they're kind of like our heirlooms," Moore said.
Link to source: http://www.catskillflies.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=4227
