the heavy hand of man

For good and bad, man continues to make the decisions for mother earth
http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregon ... cart_river
http://www.oregonlive.com/pacific-north ... cart_river
http://www.oregonlive.com/sports/oregon ... cart_river
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/i ... cart_river

Hi Mike

The one on the cormorants angers me (as I am sure it does many of us), but I am just going to wait and see because there is nothing I or anyone can do at this time.  Their mistakes will become clearer as time passes….though they will never admit to them.

Again, in my eyes, the Corp has never done anything that is right for nature.  My opinion is formed from my exposure to them when I was a wildlife biologist in the Southeast.  Fortunately, here in Maine, we do not have any examples of the damage they do (I may be overlooking something).  The ACE did try to push through the Dickey-Lincoln Power Project in northern Maine when I was a wildlife student.  They came to campus and I guess they expected a warm welcome…LOL.  A few of us wildlife students got together and put them on the front burner during their "presentation".  They had no defense.  

Enter Robert Redford 
But that did not stop the Dickey-Lincoln Power Project in Maine.   As you all know, Mr. Redford is a staunch environmentalist.  He has been one his entire life, through all those years when environmentalists were painted as wackoes (Limbaugh's words) and social misfits.  I deeply admire Mr. Redford.  He was scheduled to come to Maine to talk at a fund raising dinner for Dem. Rep. William Hathaway (back in the 70's…right in those years when I was in and just out of wildlife school and confronted the Corp of Engineer representatives).  When I read in the paper that Mr. Redford was coming to Maine to speak for Mr Hathaway I was highly agitated because Rep. Hathaway was a staunch backer of the Dickey-Lincoln Power project for northern Maine.

Somehow, I was able to get hold of Mr. Redford's telephone number and I made that call.  I was so shocked and elated when this famous actor's public relation person answered the phone and actually listened to me.   I briefly and politely exposed the project and the damage it would do to northern Maine.  I asked that Mr. Redford carefully re-consider his speaking date in Maine.   The public relations person was very nice and told me that Mr. Redford was not aware of this but would look into it. 

Within a few days the Portland paper announced that Mr. Redford had cancelled his dinner speaking date in Maine.  Here is the link from that time.  I was absolutely elated.

And that is the utter truth   You cannot blame me for being very proud of this one.   


https://news.google.com/newspapers?nid= ... 0731&hl=en

BTW….Rep Hathaway lost his re-election bid.


REFERENCE THE LINK….FISHERIES DEPARTMENT TARGETING WARM WATER FISH SPECIES.
They do the same thing here Mike and they have been doing it my entire life.  They have been told over and over by those of us who preceded them and might have some knowledge of what is out there in our Maine waters and how they all relate.    But it all falls on deaf ears.  They have the power and they "by-God" are going to use that power.  There's a never-ending "silent" war on warm water fish.   They stuff Brook Trout i whatever waters they think it can possibly live (for just one season!!)…believing that fishermen feel that this is the premiere trout species in Maine (and maybe fishermen do believe this).  

But I am certain that there are many more fishermen pursuing Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass.  Yet,  Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife continues to ignore that fact.  The place I go to photograph loons has a "Wanted" poster up on a tree (LOL) that shows a Smallmouth, along with a Northern Pike and warns of the results of moving fish around from waters to waters.  Ok, they have a point with the Pike.  But I was catching Smallmouths from this very pond….50 years ago!!!   And who knows how long this species had been there before that? 

Back in the 70's the Landlocked Salmon fishery In Sebago (Se-BA-go) Lake had become very poor.  Sebego is the local favorite for southern Maine.  In the end, it was determined that the cause was DDT.   But in the interim, in desperation to create a fishery, they brought in deep spawning lake trout from New York state (because there is a need to occasionally draw down Sebago.).  Fast forward 40 years….for years now they have waged war on the very lake trout they were responsible for putting into Sebago in the first place.  Nobody petitioned them to stock these Lakers in Sebago.  They acted solely on their own decisions.  Now, they cannot get rid of them.  

If there is any fisheries biologist on this forum, would you please explain why it is that these biologists often insist on forcing a fishery to become that which it is not naturally.

Weren't largemouth and smallmouth brought to America from Europe in the late 19th century?  They have become well-established and although many state fishery agencies refuse to acknowledge them, the bass have become a highly favored fishery.  So why don't Fish Biologists simply accept largemouth and smallmouth as a desirable fishery ?  I do not get it.

Robert

The 2 races of bass are native to the eastern US...they are not native to the west.  Small mouth were planted in a number of rivers in Oregon in the 70s when it was the rage to move fish around for "fishing opportunity".  They wreck havoc on Salmon and Steelhead smolts heading for the ocean.  They are s o numerous in the John Day system that every sweep of a fly brings a hit.  Large mouth introduced into trophy trout lakes have the effect of crashing the food chain.  Don't get me started on Brook Trout (native to the East Coast) and their ability to overpopulate a watershed until a mature fish may be only 4 inches long.  The fishing groups pushed through legislation to stop Oregon Fish & Wildlife from moving non native fish into the rivers and to support our native fish with rules so that future generations will have privilege of knowing these first hand instead of in books.
Here is a PDF of the plan...I was the head of the Wildfish Political Action Committee which pushed this through in the early 90s.
http://dfw.state.or.us/fish/CRP/docs/nfcp.pdf

Yuh, just checked that…LM is native to eastern and central U.S. and the smallmouth quite the same but extends more southward too….but not Europe.  Don't know why I had that Europe thing locked into my mind.

I run into this problem with the movement of species worldwide.  In my specific field it is plants and…..the burmese python.  What's worse is that with some of these species, it is impossible to rid ourselves of them.  

It's chilling to think that this movement of species….. globally….. is probably not going to stop.  Man, of course, is the principle vector.

Interestingly, a small handful of our beloved species were first exotics…introduced to America.  We do not think of them as exotics, but they are.

That is not to say that I support the introduction of species into areas they are not native.  Of course, I staunchly oppose it.  It is wreaking havoc with my native terrestrial systems in the East.

There is a mindset among Easterners that the Brookie is the God among salmonids…LOL  Did I read something last year where they were trying to remove it from some pristine, high mountain lakes out West.

It must of been fun studying the python (not) LOL.  I spent a summer working at the San Diego Zoo herp house learning to milk the bad boys and cleaning cages, wish my reactions were as fast now.