Quote:
Originally Posted by Bigbadblair
This may be super simplistic but what has a higher priority - Conservation of a species or Recreation?
I think this is an ethical decision for you to make. As I stated before - I don't want to be complicit. If we're told what the science is pointing to and what things we can do to fix them.. I go with the science and the rational phasing in of changes.
Yeti - do you mind sharing any response you get? Curious how they will respond
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As an example it wouldn't bother me one bit if Athabasca rainbows went extinct and were replaced with other species of rainbows, brookies, browns etc.
If conservation of a species is the only goal then they should choose 1 or 2 rivers/areas and conserve them in those areas. They don't need to shut down half the freaking province trying to maintain a species that is not an ideal fit for most of the waterbodies it was originally found in.
The reason cutties, athabasca rainbows, bulls and grayling were our native species is because that is what was naturally in the area... There is no other reason then that. The fact that they are natural does not mean that they were or are well suited to these waterbodies. An easy example being bull trout which are a cold water species that used to inhabit far more of this province due to the lack of predators and high populations. Now that there is more stuff affecting them they have retracted to the waterbodies/areas that they are more suited to living to.
A similar example to consider would be the lake trout in Lake Athabasca. Lake trout are not a shallow water species nor a river species yet because of the huge populations of lake trout there are a number of these fish that travel to the far west end of the lake(which is all like 2-4 feet deep) and then up the river. We are talking 100s of kms of water that is not ideal for these lakers but they go there because they can and because they are searching for food. If the lake trout population was knocked back a bit you wouldn't see near as many fish in those areas because they would choose to stay in their more natural settings. This is something you can discuss with the natives up at Fort Chip if you want, they will tell you how the lake has become so overrun in recent years and how they didn't use to catch or see near as many lake trout on the west end of the lake(even though the west end of the lake is actually getting shallower and receding due to sediment inflow from the Athabasca river).
I guess what I am trying to say is no matter how hard fisheries work they will never get the bull trout back to the point they were before humans had any affect on them. We have destroyed some of their habitat, we have introduced other species of fish that compete with them(primarily browns in say Clearwater, Red Deer, NSR etc) and we also have fished for them. The fact that we have driven them back to a small area compared to historical figures does not necessarily mean that they are in trouble and that they will go extinct. They have an advantage in many of these areas and have done well in recovering in some of them just with the changes to C&R in past years.