County Fish and Game Commission discusses trout planting issues
The Butte County Fish and Game Commission held its quarterly meeting this week in Paradise, and part of the agenda included discussion of the hot-button issue of planting hatchery rainbow trout.

A few years ago, Stanford Law students sued the DFG over their 100-year old policy of stocking rainbow trout without filing and Environmental Impact Report. The result was a temporary suspension of trout stocking in many state waters until an EIR could be completed.

Local Butte County DFG fisheries biologist Tracy McReynolds reported to the commission that the "Pre-stocking Evaluation Protocol" process has been completed for some Butte County waters. At this time, the Okizu Camp ponds for terminally ill children, Paradise Pond, and DeSabla Reservoir will be eligible for re-stocking, although DeSabla will be restricted to the Triploid fish which are in short supply.

McReynolds elaborated that now that the review process has been completed, the DFG's trout re-stocking policy will be based on three possibilities:
1. Stocking will have no environmental impact, and will be resumed using standard hatchery-produced rainbow trout.
2. Stocking may have a genetic impact upon local trout species; only "Triploid" [sterilized] rainbow trout may be stocked to eliminate the possibility of interbreeding with local wild trout and/or steelhead populations.
3. Stocking will have adverse impact on local amphibians and other native wildlife, and will be permanently halted.

This writer inquired regarding two further possible options for stocking:
A. Stocking of steelhead-strain rainbows in those specific areas where such interaction may occur.
B. Stocking of the "Local Watershed-strain" rainbows, which are less efficient at the hatchery level, but would be a better alternative than no stocking at all. Later in the week I spoke to Jim Starr, the DFG's Staff Environmental Scientist on this topic.

Starr explained that the steelhead option is indeed exercised on a few waterways [including the Sacramento River] where inventory of such steelhead-strain stock exists. However, the DFG does not have available stock of the many other steelhead strains. It also does not have most of the many local watershed-strains present throughout the state, with a few notable exceptions like Eagle Lake.

Starr continued, "We are simply not going to be able to get back to what we did before the lawsuits were filed and the EIR completed. Some of the opposition groups feel the baseline protocol needs to go back to the year 1870. Others still want no stocking period, stating that no hatchery fish are native fish. "Our current protocol allows stocking for up to five years in a body of water, but anyone can file a legal challenge within 30 days of our announcing of intent to stock. We now have three legal challenges to our new stocking list; filed by the Center for Biological Diversity, the Owens Valley Committee, and Californians for Alternatives to Toxics.

Much more information regarding the new trout stocking policy is available on the DFG's website at dfg.ca.gov [For more about this issue, see the ER's online editions]

Salmon fishing
The first California ocean salmon fishing season in several years opened on April 3, and will run at least until April 30. Results ranged from fair to excellent, with anglers out of Bodega Bay experiencing full-limit action on some days.

The federally-based Pacific Fisheries Management Council is meeting this week, to determine exactly what the final ocean salmon regulations will be for 2010. The PFMC will choose from several options, including completely closing the season for the rest of the year after April 30.

Once the ocean [federal] regulations are complete, the DFG will decide exactly what the inland [river] salmon fishing regulations will be. The final announcement is expected sometime in mid to late May.

Trout stocking [continued]
Starr continued, "The cost to produce and maintain the numerous different strains of trout and steelhead around the state would be prohibitively expensive, and producing a batch of even a single strain takes three to five years."

The current critical shortage of Triploid rainbows means that many waters that have technically been approved for stocking will not receive any fish. Starr observed, "We have purchased some additional Triploid eggs from Idaho. Most importantly, we are buying more equipment needed to produce our own Triploids."