For a start, you can blame the
enthusiasm of “bucket biologists” in the West. As far back as the
1800s, these avid anglers and fishery managers took it upon
themselves to bring fish — and fishing — to lakes and
streams in the high country and backcountry of America. A lot of
people praised them for their efforts.
But now we know
something about the consequences of rashly interfering with the
ecology of remote areas. Of the roughly 16,000 alpine lakes that
dot our Western mountains, more than 95 percent were once naturally
fishless, though they weren’t the “barren” places they’ve often
been labeled. Instead, they teemed with a rich diversity of aquatic
life that evolved without the presence of an effective predator
such as trout.
Native trout populations, which mostly
inhabited rivers and streams, were also harmed by introduced fishes
that brought disease, competition and hybridization. Yet despite
irrefutable scientific evidence of the ecological damage from fish
stocking, the practice continues in America’s most revered
wilderness areas.
At the same time, fishery managers and
many private organizations are working to recover populations of
native trout. It’s a great idea and long past due. But all too
often these projects repeat the mistakes of the past. They benefit
a single species — cutthroat trout — at the expense of
the ecosystem as a whole. Because insects, amphibians and most
other native organisms don’t rise to a fly like cutthroat do, many
fish managers seem blind to their existence.
The methods
fish managers use to restore native trout compound the public
controversy and risk to aquatic ecosystems. First, they destroy
existing fish populations by dumping vast quantities of poisons
such as rotenone into the waters. Rotenone, like many poisons, is a
natural substance that, when applied in a high concentration, is
lethal to fish and other aquatic species.
What is not
entirely known is the full effect of rotenone combined with the
neutralizing chemicals that are dumped in the water afterward. Nor
does anyone fully understand how these deadly agents interact with
the myriad other toxins that are ubiquitous in the environment.
This is still under study, though a review of published research
points to the potential for significant and long-term impacts to
non-target aquatic communities.
But any challenge to the
fish managers’ tool of choice can get one dismissed as a
“chemophobe” — even when the poisoning involves one of our
nation’s most pristine and wild landscapes.
Consider the
state of Montana’s plan to poison several lakes in the legendary
Bob Marshall Wilderness. The stated goal is to remove some of the
non-native fish from the South Fork Flathead drainage in the hope
it will lessen the chance of these aliens commingling with the
native fishes downstream. That’s a goal almost anyone can support.
But the devil is in the details.
To remove these fish,
the state proposes to dump 15,000 gallons of rotenone poison in
these wilderness lakes. And to do that, it wants to invade with
helicopters, generators and motorboats, all of which are banned in
designated wilderness. Then, after the poison has done its work,
the state’s plan calls for stocking these naturally fishless lakes
with Westslope cutthroat trout. It is a species native downstream,
but it’s as alien to these lakes as a gorilla would be to the
surrounding forest. This is fish farming masquerading as ecological
restoration, made worse by the fact it is proposed for a
congressionally protected wilderness.
The Wilderness Act
is unique in that it represents this society’s commitment to set
apart some areas where we can let nature run, “an area where the
earth and its community of life are untrammeled by man.” The law is
not so much about protecting natural museums or pristine landscapes
as it is about curbing homo sapiens’ unceasing desire to
manipulate nature to some “beneficial” end. As longtime Forest
Service researcher Robert Lucas put it, in wilderness, “the object
is to let nature “roll the dice‚ and accept what results with
interest and scientific curiosity.” It is a check on our hubris, a
statement of humility and restraint.
Restoring native
species to their natural habitats is a good thing. So is protecting
the native species already there. Wilderness managers in the Bob
Marshall and elsewhere would do well to take a page from the work
of ecologists in the Sierra Nevada, who are foregoing poisons and
motorized equipment in their work to remove unwanted fish from
naturally fishless lakes and thereby restore the native biota to a
healthy condition.
It is tough, slow, challenging work.
It respects and enhances what is unique, important and profound
about wilderness.
George Nickas is a
contributor to Writers on the Range, a service of High Country News
(hcn.org). He is the executive director of Wilderness Watch in
Missoula, Montana.
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