Vermont has two official state fish, the brook trout and the walleye pike. The state Fish & Wildlife Department has announced a new effort to protect one of them — the wild native brook trout — from competing fish species introduced into ponds by fishermen.
The department will soon post signs at eight ponds throughout the state asking anglers to avoid using baitfish — the small fish that are sometimes released to attract larger catch. The effort is a collaboration among state and national agencies and the Vermont chapter of the Native Fish Coalition, a press release said.
Vermont already regulates the use of baitfish throughout the state, said Chris Owen, chair of the Vermont chapter of the Native Fish Coalition.
“I think many anglers in the general public don’t fully realize the impact that releasing bait into a body of water can have in terms of disrupting natural populations that have existed there for thousands of years,” he said.
But even with regulations in place, Owen said, baitfish and their impact on native fish populations have become evident in some areas. One example is Beaver Pond in Holland. The population of wild native brook trout in that pond has been compromised, Owen said, because baitfish have disrupted the food chain. There is no longer enough feed for the brook trout to grow and prosper, he said.
Beaver Pond is on the list of locations to receive the Vermont Fish & Wildlife signs.
Jud Kratzer, a fisheries biologist at Vermont Fish & Wildlife, said under the regulations, signs outlining the laws were supposed to be posted near each pond. The department did put up signs long ago, but many were paper.
Kratzer said the Native Fish Coalition offered to pay for and post new metal signs this summer.
Beyond baitfish, Vermont’s official cold-water state fish has faced many habitat challenges.
“Wild native brook trout require the coldest, the cleanest of water, and in that sense they are a sentinel species,” Owen said.
The fish generally live in waters that are between 32 and 65 degrees Fahrenheit, and they cannot survive in water temperatures of 75 degrees and up for more than a few hours, so warming waters have posed a problem for the species.
Other factors — development, dams, clearing of streams — have also pushed the species out of their original habitat in the Appalachian Mountains, Owen said.
Brook trout are native in Georgia and all the way up into parts of eastern Canada, Kratzer said, but their range is shrinking and their numbers are decreasing in some places.
“It’s mostly in the southern part of the Appalachians, where water temperatures tend to be warmer and so other species like rainbow trout and brown trout have more of an advantage,” Kratzer said.
But since many of Vermont’s small streams still run cold, “it’s not as doom and gloom up here as it is in the southern part of their range,” he said.
While there are lots of brook trout in Vermont streams, there are not many in the state’s ponds, according to Kratzer. Some of this has to do with European settlers stocking ponds with many different kinds of fish in the 1800s, which then outcompeted the wild native brook trout.
The cold-water fish can also have difficulty living in ponds because the water tends to get warm, and many survive in them by living in the areas where cold water flows in from springs.
But the introduction of new species of fish is currently the biggest risk at these ponds around the state, Kratzer said.
Owen said there have been many efforts to protect or restore brook trout habitat throughout Vermont.
“When many of us look upon a beautiful, flowing mountain stream, we see wilderness in what we believe to be the true essence,” he said.
But fishery managers and habitat specialists will look at those same streams and pick up on the impacts of logging in northern Vermont from more than a century ago, Owen said. Loggers cleared streams and widened streambeds so they could run logs, he said, damaging fish habitat.
Fishery habitat managers are working to restore these streams by placing wood that will narrow and deepen channels, Owen said. The wood also helps provide places for brook trout to hide from predators and catches organic material that decomposes and attracts insects, which the fish eat, Kratzer said.
Recent restoration efforts in the Battenkill, a Vermont river famous among anglers, have produced good results, including a 500% increase in young trout.
Owen said he hopes Vermont will consider other restoration efforts too, perhaps including pond reclamation. That technique, popular in the 1980s and ’90s, has since “fallen out of favor,” according to Owen, due to controversy in environmental circles. Pond reclamation introduces inorganic chemicals to ponds with invasive species, killing fish so they can be restocked with native fish.
“Native Fish Coalition sees it as a potential management tool that should be examined and perhaps restored where there is a likelihood of success of restoring native fish populations,” Owen said.
The group plans to talk with state fishery managers about the possibility of using the method, Owen said. He said he thinks it should be used in some of the state’s ponds to help restore wild native brook trout — if it is done carefully and after public discussion of the pros and cons.
Signs will go up in the coming weeks at Beaver Pond in Holland, Blake Pond in Sutton, Cow Mountain Pond in Granby, Jobs Pond in Westmore, Lewis Pond in Lewis, North Pond in Chittenden, Unknown Pond in Avery’s Gore and Noyes Pond in Groton.
“The signs are simply designed and being posted to remind anglers and the public that baitfish prohibition exists by law and regulation, and that there is very good reason for it,” Owen said. “That introduction of invasive species such as baitfish or other game fish — perch, bass or others — can have a devastating impact on fish communities that have existed for millennia.”
Don't miss a thing. Sign up here to get VTDigger's weekly email on the energy industry and the environment.
"fish" - Google News
July 26, 2021 at 01:31AM
https://ift.tt/3iOqCT0
Fish & Wildlife to post signs warning against baitfish use in ponds home to brook trout - vtdigger.org
"fish" - Google News
https://ift.tt/35JkYuc
https://ift.tt/3feFffJ
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Fish & Wildlife to post signs warning against baitfish use in ponds home to brook trout - vtdigger.org"
Post a Comment