Here's some ways to help on the trout stocking issue. Anyone can help here by finding out the following for each location:

1. Who will be conducting the pre-stocking assessments?

2. Will private groups be funding these assessments, or allowed to fund them. In other words, will the Center for Biological Diversity be allowed to fund them?

3. When will these assessments be conducted?

4. Who are the regional DFG people involved in the assessments?

5. Will fishermen be asked to provide input on the presence of threatened/endangered species?

6. What is the criteria for the assessments. Some very important questions are things like

A. Does the area have to have threatened/endangered species now, or will historical presence be enough to stop stocking?

B. Will the current environment be assessed? Meaning, will they take in to account the effect of removing planted trout from the environment on threatened/endangered species. Will they consider that hungry cormorants, deprived of stocked trout, will turn on native species and eat them?

These are all very important questions. Will we as fishermen let other groups dictate the ground rules for the DFG to follow, or will we get involved to make sure this is a fair and unbiased process?