Fish Poison Politics

The hassle, horrendous though it was, seemed to have been worth it. The endangered Sacramento and San Joaquin salmonids appeared to be safe from the saber-tooth aliens. But then in May 1999 pike - stocked by angry residents or missed by the rotenone—again turned up in Lake Davis. After a five-year pummeling by the public and the press Fish and Game had no more belly for confrontation, and who can blame it? The ignorati had won. Now the department proposes a "multi-faceted" plan - devised by a team dominated by city, county and state bureaucrats who wouldn't know a trout from a pout - whereby pike are to be removed by barriers, drawdowns, explosives, electro-fishing and nets. Fish and Game admits that the plan won't eliminate pike, just knock them way down. But removing most of an alien population is like amputating most of a gangrenous appendage; it doesn't accomplish a whole lot.

Here, from a letter to the California Fish and Game Dept., is what the California-Nevada chapter of the American Fisheries Society thinks of this approach: "We believe any action less than eradication is in violation of state law and biologically and ecologically irresponsible . . . . It is clear to us that little or no sound fishery science has been used to develop this plan. It appears the Department has adopted objectives, control techniques, and monitoring programs based on consensus of non-biologists. In doing so, the Department has abdicated its legal and professional responsibilities."

Too bad that fisheries professionals are getting beaten down as they labor to repair the remnants of humanity's only real wealth. Strange that the public should pay for the education of fisheries professionals, pay for their salaries and benefits, pay for their buildings and equipment, then push them aside and undertake fisheries management itself. But not at all strange that native fish should then flicker out.