Several anglers have asked me why it is necessary to pass a fish ID test to participate in this project. The reason is that many anglers are unable to accurately identify the three species of trout involved, usually because they have never been shown what the key identifying features are. (The attached paper provides some indication of this problem.)
Data from the Quirk Creek Brook Trout Suppression Project also demonstrates that the mandatory testing and fish identification education is working -- only 15 of the more than 9,500 trout harvested since inception of this project have not been brook trout, which is an error rate of less than 0.2%.
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