|
The Batten Kill stocking: A matter of class?
If you've been following the Batten Kill trout stocking controversy, you know that the state, in the name of keeping hungry anglers happy, wants to stock the main stem of the Batten Kill with 1,000 sterile rainbow trout (fish whose sole purpose is to be caught and eaten; sterile so, in theory, the fish won't affect wild populations of brown and brook trout). The conservation group Trout Unlimited claims it's naive to think that such a stocking program won't effect the native fish. On Tuesday night, TU hosted a presentation by ecologist Robert Bachman at Burr and Burton's Riley Theater designed to reinforce its stance on the issue. Bachman, a former fisheries supervisor for the state of Maryland, was an entertaining speaker. A roundish, older gentleman, he projected the distinguished, rumpley aura of a college professor.
Sewage plant mishap kills trout in Dog River
A chemical release by a municipal sewage plant is being blamed for killing a significant number of fish last week on one of Vermont's premier wild trout streams.
Fish were killed on more than a half-mile stretch of the Dog River below the Northfield sewage treatment plant. An angler alerted state fisheries biologist of dead fish Monday afternoon.
According to Northfield Village Manager Charles Morse, an infusion of chlorine was accidentally leaked into the Dog River from the sewage treatment plant as work was being done to upgrade the facility's chlorinating system.
"We knew we released chlorine, but we didn't detect a problem until later on," Morse said. "We're upset that we killed fish, obviously; we try to be as environmentally conscious as we can be."
Morse said the spill affected a stretch of river about 0.6 of a mile long, from below the sewage plant to the mouth of Cox Brook, a major tributary of the Dog.
Web site gives peek at aquatic insects
Fly fishermen who chase freshwater trout throughout North America now have the ability to get a new detailed peek into the world of aquatic insects which form the forage base for the likes of rainbows, brookies and browns. The web site www.troutnut.com was re-launched in late August and it offers a detailed encyclopedia of mayflies, caddisflies and stoneflies. Site developer Jason Neuswanger has gathered thousands of color closeup photographs of trout stream insects. Neuswanger says the web site offers much more than can be found in the hundreds of books on the subject. "The best books were written before I was born," said Neuswanger, a Cornell graduate, "and since that time technology has lifted some big limitations." Neuswanger covers the behavior of the stream side insects, which vary as much as their appearances.
|
|
|
|
|
Bookmark
(Ctrl + D) |
|
