Category Archives: environment

Never as compelling as Broccoli Dip

That casual dinner conversation where you were introduced as … “likes to fish”,  which you hastily amended to “likes to fly fish”, given how you felt it necessary to separate yourself from the lawn chair crowd …

You knew how odd your pastime was going to sound to the uninitiated, as you’d explained the attraction many times, and as the passion rose in your voice and the crowd began to edge away, you realized how weird and unfathomable standing in cold water willingly must sound.

Especially when you added the mating rituals of bugs and how you have to scrub your prophylactic breathable condom so you can contain its contagion to the current watershed and none other  …

Sure they looked at you funny, mostly because you lost them at “eighty dollar chicken hackle” … and they started to backpedal when you sprayed spit discussing the Southern California water lobby, and when they heard you spend a thousand dollars on a fishing rod, realized the hostess’s Broccoli Dip was exceptional – and how they’d better get more before it simply vanished …

Now the Worm turns, and I put you in their shoes, offering three simple pictures to you, the uninitiated, to illustrate their plight …

Green_tomato

Behold the grandeur that is California’s Central Valley, the eleventh largest economy in the World, producer of a third of all produce served in the United States. I call it home (of a sort) fish every unloved brown rivulet it contains, and is a world completely foreign to the rest of you “fly fishermen.”

Above, behold tomatoes …

sunflower

Sunflowers …

alfalfa

… and alfalfa …

Imagine yourself whizzing by enroute to some high dollar, high elevation venue featuring noble salmonids, greasy roadside breakfast fare, Spartan camping, and containing real dirt and frequented by real wild animals. This is the rich adventure worthy of holding the office crowd spellbound at Monday’s coffeepot recital …

Assume there’s more to those pictures than meets the eye, and as you shuffle your Chardonnay from one hand to the other, consider they might contain a world of information known only to us sweaty fat guys whose footprints soil these sordid watersheds …

The question: From the above, What can you tell me of the local fishing, and should you suit up (assuming your car broke down) and go fishing ?

Like your audience struggled when you mentioned denuding rare songbirds, and letting all your catch go – now you can take a few strides in their shoes.

Assuming it’s going to 103 by afternoon, and we’re showing you pictures of aquatic insects and discussing mating habits of their winged variant, what can you tell me of the below snapshots?

sunflower_mow

Sunflowers again, no beehives and the rows of males mown to remove them from the harvestable females …

rust_tomato

More tomatoes, whose leafy greens are turning to rust …

almonds

… and almonds.

Question: With this new three, and armed with a brief treatise on Latin, and still smarting from the mating habits of bugs and the thousand dollar “buggy whip”, (doesn’t our hostess’s Broccoli dip looks so much more inviting?)  what about the fishing now – and why now versus earlier?

Simple. Water.

In the first three, the diversion ditches are lipping full due to the pumps drawing from either groundwater or the river, most everything else is being siphoned into canals to feed distant and dry land, and the river is a memory as its gone due to irrigation. If it’s 103 out the river is lifeless as it doesn’t contain enough water, is hellish warm and the fish are alternating lethargic or panting.

In the second three, the water has been turned off to allow crops to ripen for market. The female sunflowers will dry completely in place, the tomato fields are turning rust-colored due to the shrinking foliage and exposure of ripening red tomatoes, and the irrigation sprinklers have been pulled from the almond orchards, with no trace of their passing.

The diversion ditches are bone dry, the pumps are silent, and the river is full of lukewarm water and fish with roman noses possessing great appetites for flies. The 103 degree temperatures are shrugged off as there’s ample depth of water to absorb the heat without it removing the oxygen.

… and in pausing for breath I note the queue at the dip bowl and the nervous glances of those just out of earshot …

Brook Trout victimized by Heat and Performance anxiety

With all the hormones in the water column you’d think us old guys and our yen for little blue pills would be able to pee a little stability into native Brook Trout populations, at least enough to overcome the ill effects of global warming …

New research suggests an increase of as little as a single degree in median summertime temperatures can delay Brook Trout spawning by as much as a week – worse is there’s less fish with the urge …

"These trout can’t build gonads in the summer," Kraft said. "They’re burning more energy to survive, so they don’t have energy to produce eggs. The warmer it gets, the fewer fish are spawning; some just give up."

Makes you wonder whether those female hormones that are rumored to be in the drinking water and the root cause of gender-bending fish populations, aren’t part of some sinister Amazonian world domination gambit, where they’re sprinkling extra into the water supply just so’s we’ll sit still when they talk window treatments.

Guys never pay attention to warnings on labels, and would gladly swallow handfuls of turgidity simply to brag about what deeds were accomplished during the all-important “… if this condition persists for more than four hours …” medical miracle session.

Now that we’re killing off all those planted cockroaches, the Rainbow Trout, in favor of native Brookies, it’s nice to know we’re haven’t lost our sense of timing nor humor, knowing we’re hoping for a sustainable trout population by adding more eunuchs.

In Spring a young man’s thoughts turn to Invasives?

death_rayOnly recently recovered from the attempt to make Striped Bass the killer of all salmonids, and now on the eve of my Spring Shad orgy, West Coast scientists are suddenly spraying my favorite quarry with the invasive label.

… and while they readily admit that most of the science on American Shad has been done on the East Coast, and very little is known of our Western invasive cousin, now that we’ve extincted the Pacific Salmon, we’re sure to find the American Shad had a hand in it.

All of which causes me to burst into tears, given that Science can never bring themselves to admit we paved, screwed, and ate, anything that was tasty – and are even now grinding up and coloring everything that isn’t  ..

So the last big anadromous fishery left on the Pacific Coast, needs to be kilt off because they weren’t invited? How about you restore some urban stream to a healthy population of salmon and then we’ll talk – and not before.

This month Fisheries Magazine features a couple of articles on the American Shad, the first relating the efforts to get them here, and the second relating to how their spread along the Pacific Coast might have altered the environment for our Pacific Salmon, how they may have had a hand in both helping and extincting same.

Young shad dine on similar freshwater foods as young salmon, young shad may provide more food for known salmon predators like my beloved Northern Pikeminnow, allowing them to survive in greater numbers to prey upon young salmon, and Shad may have been host to saltwater parasites that spread to both salmon and humans in freshwater.

But they’re not really all that sure of any of it …

In fact, it is out of concern specifically for salmon that biologists now seriously contemplate the ecological role of shad in the Columbia River. For some, the “scientific” response has been “guilty until proven innocent” (Simberloff 2007), with calls to eliminate shad above Bonneville Dam (Snake River Salmon Recovery Team [SRSRT] 1994; National Marine Fisheries Service [NMFS] 1995). Though some hypotheses have been advanced to suggest that shad may negatively affect Pacific coastal ecosystems (e.g., Haskell et al. 2001; Harvey and Kareiva 2005; Hershberger et al. 2010), the specific interactions with salmon remain largely untested hypotheses, and the a priori vilification of shad in the absence of supporting data constitutes speculation and opinion, not established fact (J. H.Brown and Sax 2007). The presence of shad in the Columbia River may actually be a mixed blessing.

… and on the converse, because young shad are numerically superior to any other life form in these rivers at certain times of the year, science suggests they may have a beneficial role – serving as a food source for young salmon.

One thing’s for sure, something is eating something else – and we’re eating that …

What science there is on the Pacific contingent of the American Shad is focused on the west coast’s greatest rivers, the Columbia and the Sacramento. While much of these articles dealt with impoundments of the Columbia, some insights into local fish were new (to us anglers) …

Specifically, Smith (1895) reported the tendency
of Sacramento River shad to remain in the San Francisco Bay
region throughout the year, with some proportion of the population foregoing the typical marine migration altogether. Smith (1895) also reported San Francisco Bay shad to be in spawning condition from December to August. This is considerably longer than the source stock used for introduction.

Outside of being enormously fun to catch, ask any two anglers about Shad behavior and you’re liable to get mostly rumor and innuendo, exposing the dearth of information that exists on our favorite saltwater racehorse.

/end Science.

/begin Opinion.

I can’t help note how restoring fisheries always starts with us killing something else. Actual restoration is bestial hard, nor can I point to a single river or pond and say, “ … this was once terrible and has been completely restored.”

There’s a reason for that.

If we are ever to be successful restoring anything, then we have to manage it for eternity, not for some well meaning conservation organization to cut a ribbon, dust its hands and pronounce, “we’re done.”

Restoration is never done, and as soon as you lose resolve or run out of money, all your hard work slips into the Abyss.

… which is why when I hear the Rotenone call, “Nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure” – I get all squirrely, as killing has always been the easiest part.

It’s my belief that all of our conservation organizations added together, combined with all the awesome might of the federal wildlife agencies, have restored  … nothing.

Not a single lake, stream, or rivulet.

Surely, they are busy restoring all kinds of things, but they will never be done – and so long as they allow us fishermen to fish, or developers to build, we’ll being spilling something new into the water that’ll prove bad for fish, and trigger some new species collapse that’ll need yet another task force, and even more money.

… yet every so often we get an evolutionary “lucky.” Some unloved, unwanted cockroach that repopulates water too poor to sustain what used to live there, and we gash ourselves and claim, “ … how goddamn dare they.”

Science busies itself uncorking Death Rays and Rotenone to rid itself of the interloper, knowing all the time that it’s easier to nuke some bland filet than muster the political clout to cite the BP refinery upstream that kilt all the old stuff …

Scientists in aggregate are smart as hell. Unfortunately within the gleaming walls of their laboratory they practice Hollywood Science, pure, pristine, and untrammeled. Reality-based science is called “politics”, and those fellows aren’t so smart, and are often careless and greedy.

Sure you can handle the pain, but what about the fish?

pissing The Good News is what we’re pissing into the creek isn’t killing fish outright, rather all that runoff from wastewater treatment containing our prescribed anti-anxiety, lowered cholesterol, blood- thinning stimulants, merely make them giggle watching Mom struggle with a faceful of your artificial …

In the current study, the shelter-seeking behavior of fathead minnows was monitored under laboratory conditions for 28 days using digital tracking software to diagnose abnormal behavior while they were exposed to sertraline, which is used to treat depression, panic attacks and other disorders. Sertraline concentrations and lighting conditions significantly affected the time that the minnows spent in a sheltered area.

During dark conditions, sertraline-exposed fish spent approximately 67 to 78 percent of the time that control fish spent in the shelter. During light intervals, fish exposed to sertraline spent between 18 and 42 percent less time in the shelters.

"The shelter was the only dark area during light conditions in the observation tanks; therefore, control fish apparently retreated to the shelter to reduce anxiety, whereas fish exposed to sertraline appeared to display reduced anxiety and did not exhibit this behavior," Brooks said.

– via PhysOrg.com

… which is a big relief for us anglers, given how much we care about our quarry and the fight triggered by us forcing steel through a lower jaw. They can feel good so long as they continue to struggle and peel line …

Now that science has shown that drugs act on fish similar to their effect on humans, we might as well make them eat longer and remain exposed to predation.

It used to be a can opener and tuna fish or creamed corn we chummed with – now it’ll be left over Lithium, or expired pain pills. Some enterprising fellow at TU is probably already negotiating with the DEA to flush a freighter-load of Coca powder down the Illinois River, solving the Asian Carp issue in process.

The Tongass – Old Growth, Salmon, and Clean Water, all the important things that exist in short supply

National forest? National rain forest is more accurate. Make that old-growth temperate rain forest, an exceptionally rich ecosystem that holds more organic matter—more biomass—per acre than any other, including tropical jungles. And that’s not counting the equally lush forests of seaweed added to Tongass shores whenever the tide goes out. Temperate rain forest flourished from Alaska to northern California and in nations from Norway to Chile. Much has fallen to the ax and saw. In the lower 48 states, 96 percent of old-growth forest of all types has been cut down. The Tongass now represents not only the greatest remaining reserve of huge trees in the U.S., but also nearly one-third of the old-growth temperate rain forest left in the world.

-via National Geographic

I can’t bring myself to eat farmed fish despite the knowledge that everything your kid, and his kids, turn their nose up at – will be pen raised. I take full responsibility for being of the “Them as Borrowed Money So They Could Eat Everything” generation – sandwiched squarely between the Selfless and Selfish generations before and after …

I believe that deep frying renders a flaccid filet tasty, given its saran-wrapped ass is still sore from the Big Stainless, which delivered a pressurized enema of Nyquil syrup and red dye #3 …

So I troll the fish section on the urging of my doctor and other health professionals, who have been berating all of us on the merits of regular fish ingestion, and think of those last few spots on Earth where real salmon frolic …

My state is on its last gasp as host for salmon, and what little of the Northern run that’s left will be extincted when dope is legalized and shoulders past watery tomatoes and wine grapes, to divert the last remnants of Northern California’s water to growing herb.

Group Asks Obama Administration, Congress, to Strengthen Conservation and Restoration of Salmon and Trout Watersheds in Tongass National Forest.

Some states still boast a population of healthy fish, which is why my freezer at the grocery still boasts a token fillet for me to lust after.

Most are chum or pink salmon, and source from Southern Alaska, part of the the salmon rich area known as the “Tongass 77”, seventy-seven watersheds within Southeast Alaska that combine to produce nearly 28% of that state’s Pacific Salmon harvest.

… and it’s no surprise to find nearly all of the 77 rivers are vulnerable to the same issues that extincted California’s salmon industry.

The troubling history of the Pacific Northwest and
California, where salmon and trout runs have disappeared
or face serious declines, foreshadow the types of
problems that could be repeated in Southeast Alaska
unless government agencies, lawmakers and the public
act to make fish habitat conservation and restoration top
priorities. In the Tongass, the opportunity still exists to
ensure salmon and trout, and the people who depend on
them, enjoy a healthier and more stable future than their
Pacific Northwest and California kin.

Past logging practices has already damaged many of the watersheds, such as the Fubar and the Harris, and the constant threat of an increased hydroelectric presence to make the area suitable for development is certain to claim other victims.

Trout Unlimited and local organizations are asking for you to care a bit beyond selecting your next fillet, and ensuring jobs and prosperity for the local salmon industry, rather they’re looking to you to advice Congress that the entire area, all 77 rivers, be managed for salmon versus timber and tourism.

You Can helpLittle doubt the Alaskan fish will face the same pressures of people and progress as the Northern California runs faced and lost. Coupled with our reservations to consume test-tube fish, and urged by the medical establishment to consume an ever greater share of what’s left, it’s appropriate we manage these last sources of fish with the future in mind.

We’ll call it the “stutter rise” two takes from the same fish

twoheaded_trout Occasionally it’s all a bit much, the six o’clock hour stuffed with stories of disfiguring blight unleashed by Science and avaricious Capitalism on the environment, and as you snap the Telly off in favor of the Wisdom of the InterTubes, you wonder whether selling your tackle isn’t the best way to jumpstart your comic book collection, given that fragile newsprint has more of future than fishing …

… and as you search for precious lifegiving moments of angling clarity, you mistake my wit for safe harbor, only to get both boots in your ample midsection as I lean in and whisper, “ … you’re right, we’re all doomed.”

But that’s later …

Now, it’s time to make Lemonade from all those Lemons, and if the lessons of Kesterson Refuge and all that stolen water, irrigation-induced selenium poisoning has got you concerned, fear not …

… if all the trout from this day forth are born with two heads, doesn’t that mean we’re twice as likely to get ate, they’ll eat twice as much and grow doubly big in half the time?

But when other federal scientists and some environmentalists learned of the two-headed brown trout, they raised a ruckus, which resulted in further scientific review that found the company’s research wanting.

– via the New York Times

I’m reminded of the time I spoke with that elderly couple bait fishing Rancho Seco’s former wastewater treatment area. Big signs proclaimed how Nature and Atomic Energy were like two peas in the same pod …

… and as I asked the elderly fellow would he eat his catch, he nodded sagely and said it was perfectly safe – just as a mallard swam by with a big growth on its head …

I’m not sure who is the target audience, but if it’s us adults that’s an indictment of a sort

… and on a trifling note, Carnegie Mellon University has given up attempting to alert us citizens to the perils of the Asian Carp Menace, mostly because we are bored senseless by scientific dialog, and they’ve opted to make a free web game so us anglers can walk a mile in their environmental shoes …

Be the Carp, Feel the Carp – as you extinct resident species, consume all available benthic chow, then knock boat anglers senseless …

… then you take a turn as the federal Carp Czar, where you keep public opinion on your side in between emptying tanker trucks of Rotenone into swimming areas filled with small children, frying water-skiers with electric fences, and all the while placating both tourist and fishing industries.

I had to mop sweat more than a few times, but Billy Joe Bob triumphed in the end.

Us fly fishermen have never quibbled about certain labels

There’s nothing better than Science that fits a puzzle piece exactly into an odd shaped void of unexplained phenomenon, making our lives that much more meaningful …

“This is the first study to establish a direct relationship between fish consumption, brain structure and Alzheimer’s risk," said Cyrus Raji, M.D., Ph.D., from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "The results showed that people who consumed baked or broiled fish at least one time per week had better preservation of gray matter volume on MRI in brain areas at risk for Alzheimer’s disease."

– via Medicalxpress.com

… giving both us and society one more reason not to limit our kill and farm our limit, and at the same instant neatly explaining why fishermen can’t abide the taste of their quarry, why we’re all destined to have our backsides wiped for us by some truculent male-nurse named “Bruno” …

While embracing Science with both feet, Fly Fishermen have never considered “smartness” of much value, preferring hands unsoiled by bait and pants legs clean of evidence – proof of their pedigree and breeding, never relying on mundane tests like ink blots and Mensa membership.

Guys that stand in cold water are “sturdy”, men that hike miles upstream for small wild fish are “antisocial”. In hindsight, “smart” is the guy that turned us down or had to mow lawn – and while we called him “limpdix” or “wimp” on the way up the hill, on the way back he had bested us morally and physically.

Before you rip into that double Mercury with Cheese, I should point out the asterisks that ensure all the fish death caused by science will be both wasted and pointless …

Eating fried fish, on the other hand, was not shown to increase brain volume or protect against cognitive decline.

Meaning anything made from fish that tastes really stunning or like McDonald’s cardboard will not help you at all, and depending on the source of your new found protein – the chances of you dying of Mercury poisoning or ingesting a tampon are almost certain.

Salmon Anemia uber alles

Sushi2 While the hew and cry over genetic variants of Mother Nature’s finest will be played out in boardrooms and courtrooms, rest assured that our knack for bullying the environment, and then crapping on the survivors is largely intact.

It seems humans and their reared salmon have finally managed to bridge the wide gulf between wild stocks and their pen raised cousins, by introducing a hatchery caused disease into the wild ..

.. Salmon Anemia, no known cure, and a yen to trod upon whatever we don’t gill net …

The virus that causes the disease originated in the mid- 1980s in Atlantic salmon fish farms in Norway and spread to Scotland, Canada and the U.S. Farms in Chile also were infected, probably via imported eggs.

– via Bloomberg

This time it’s Mother Nature’s turn to gasp, as our disease affects both Pacific and Atlantic salmon, and therefore is the perfect, and final solution to the “salmon menace.”

Finally, some fish farms, particularly in British Columbia, should be relocated away from the migratory corridors of wild fish, so that any anemia outbreak that might occur there would be less likely to spread.

… and while they’re pointing fingers and debating across international borders, the lesson to be learned was already known to us fish chasers, “scrub your boots and don’t crap where you eat.”

They’re all at the mouth daring each other to make a dash for reproductive safety

salmon_sushi Scientists have finally discovered the reason behind declining worldwide salmon stocks, and the answer will both surprise and alarm …

For the first time scientists have discovered that migrating salmon can detect mammalian predators by the scent of already digested salmon in wastewater, which allows the migrating fish to determine whether its safe to move upstream.

"It’s the predator’s diet – not just its own smell – that’s alerting the salmon," explains Dr. Laura Roberts from the University of Swansea, co-author of the report published in Animal Behavior.

Otters are common predators of salmon so it’s clearly useful to the fish to be able to sniff them out.

The smell acts as an early-warning system for the fish, even when they can’t see the predator. It lets them work out the potential risk of being eaten and balance predator avoidance with other vital activities like foraging and reproducing.

… and test dives performed just outside the mouths of historic salmon rivers have found all the missing salmon milling about waiting for someone else to chance the first dash upstream.

Females eventually give up and release their roe in one girdle busting spasm – and then they all rush back to the safety of the open ocean. Wastewater treatment hasn’t been able to remove the scent of the fillet you ate yesterday, and everytime you flush you’ve reinforced the notion that upstream is instant death.

Again it’s your fault … if you’d been man enough to walk back to the porta-potty – instead of using a nearby bush, them fish would’ve bowled you over with sheer numbers.