Poisoning The Water

Imagine you are fishing your favorite stream. Last week, you watched several nice rainbows rise to your fly, perhaps even hooked and landed a few. Being a thoughtful angler, you practiced sound Catch and Release practices, fighting and releasing the fish as fast as possible to ensure its survival. With satisfaction, you watched the 'bow swim off, back towards the pool. As a responsible angler, you thought you knew that the fish would live to provide angling pleasure another day, and hopefully reproduce.

Today, there has not been a single rise in this normally prolific stream. In fact, the whole time you have been wading the water, you haven't even seen any fish in the shallower pools. Your first thought is that perhaps someone has been fishing recently and caught everything. Kept them all, too. But of course, thats a little unrealistic.

A little further downstream, you come across the carcass of a rainbow, obviously dead for a few days. As you continue on, there are more dead fish. Rainbows, chubb, big ones and small minnows. "Oh oh," you think to yourself. "Was there some major industrial pollution seepage?"

When you get home, you decide to call the local Fisheries Office. You recount to the Fisheries Officer that takes your call what you have seen and explain your concern. In the back of your mind, you are hoping that its just some small problem, and that your favorite fishing hole will have recovered enough in the next few weeks that you can fish there again.

At this point, you hear the Officer telling you that everything is just fine. In fact, the whole river's fish population has been intentionally killed off. No, not by some polluting factory, but by the environmentally conscious government! You discover that the fish kill has in fact been sanctioned by the Fisheries Office. Every single fish has been poisoned, by the Government.

This is not bizarre fiction. In fact, according to an article by Todd Wilkinson that appeared in the October 15 issue of Christian Science Monitor, the State of Montana is going to poison many miles of rivers in Montana. The purpose? To kill the fish species, which include rainbow, brook, and cutthroat trout. Apparently, the plan is to later restock the rivers with species that are native to the waters, including Arctic grayling and a native strain of cutthroat.

Earlier this year, Outdoor Life Magazine reported in the article 'Playing God with Cherry Creek' by Frank Miniter on the Montana scheme which has become known as 'The Cherry Creek Project.' According to Miniter, this is not the first time that fish have been purposely killed. In fact, a similar occurrence in Plumas County, California required the assistance of 24 Sheriff Dept. officers, a SWAT team, as well as numerous Fish and Game Wardens to poison Lake Davis with the aim of ridding the resident pike.

The poisons that are being used are called rotenone and antimycin. According to the Mississippi State University, rotenone is a naturally occurring substance found in the roots and stems of several tropical plants. It is commonly used in private ponds to rid nuisance species. According to the information on the University's website,

"Rotenone works by inhibiting a biochemical process in the fish cells, resulting in an inability of fish to use oxygen in the release of energy during normal body processes. In effect, the fish suffocate due to lack of oxygen. But, contrary to popular belief, rotenone does not remove oxygen from the water. Fish treated with rotenone move to the shallow water or to the surface of deeper water, gasping for oxygen within a few minutes of exposure to the chemical."

As we discovered a couple of weeks ago about the dangers of using live minnows for bait while fishing, introducing non-native species to bodies of water does have a detrimental effect. The problem though is that often it is the Governments and their fisheries policies that has caused the introduction of non-native fish. In the Great Lakes, this has been very popular with the introduction of various salmon and trout species that are not indigenous. The payoff economically has been extremely positive while thousands of anglers enjoy the highly improved fishing. Of course, we must remember that it was our pollution and poor management in the first place that caused the indigenous species to die out or at least have their numbers drastically reduced.

So what do you think of this? Do you think it is ethical to kill off a thriving trout population so that they can be replaced with a different variety? Do you have any ideas on alternatives to poisoning the fish? Post your comments below and let us know if government sanctioned fish poisoning angers you. Are you going to think twice about catch and release knowing that it may all be for nought?