Your post about the sterile trout got me to thinking last night about some out of the box ways to find compromises that allow for stocked fish and still protect rare species. First, some background, since this topic can be complicated:

1. Steelhead have been categorized in to 6 separate Distinctive Population Segments (DPS) which include:

Steelhead (Klamath Mountains Province DPS)
Steelhead (northern California DPS)
Steelhead (Central Valley DPS)
Steelhead (central California coast DPS)
Steelhead (south/central California coast DPS)
Steelhead (southern California DPS)

2. Fundamentally the Center for Biological Diversity (the group behind the trout stocking lawsuit and the closure of the back ponds at Shadwo Cliffs) says two things:

A. The genetic differences between these steelhead population segements are valuable and in need of protection.
B. Stocked fish eat or impact rare species, which is bad.

OK great. Now let's think about ways to reconcile these two agendas against the idea that it's nice to stock trout and other fish for people to catch while they enjoy the outdoors. But first some more background...

Topic 1: Stocked trout - effects through interbreeding with native steelhead, and does it even happen:

Chapter 4 of the DFG's Environmental Impact Report on trout stocking suggests that they have an idea of how often stocked trout spawn with wild steelhead. They say, "The degree of interbreeding between wild and hatchery fish can sometimes be quantified, a topic discussed in more detail in Appendix F."

I headed over to Appendix F and the best they could come up with is, "While the number of hatchery fish that actually interbreed may be low, the sheer number of hatchery fish present may be very large and may have asignificant ecological effect (Kostow 2003, 2004; Kostow and Zhou 2006). The concern is that hatchery fish may compete effectively at the juvenile stage but have inferior reproductive success.

The problem here is apparent. It's hard to quantify the interbreeding that occurs. To do that you'd have to find locations where stocked trout encounter wild steelhead. For example, below Bradbury dam during high water years. Then you'd have to find the redds (spawning beds) where trout are spawning. Then you'd have to shock the spawning pairs and identify either visually or through genetic tests whether any of the spawning pairs were comprised of stocked and wild partners. It's an unappetizing experiment since shocking spawning fish isn't very polite.

I tried to find out if anyone has done this. There are a few studies on this topic. . They're studying hatchery steelhead vs. hatchery rainbow trout, and they repeatedly bring up the subject of interbreeding but I can't find any place where they give a percentage of spawning pairs observed where a hatchery fish was spawning with a wild fish. They seem to just make an automatic assumption that it happens. This study is a pretty good read, in spite of the author's habit of throwing in big phrases like, "deleterious alleles."

Common sense says that stocked fish and wild fish will spawn together. But putting a percentage of occurrence on this is very hard. I sense that the answer to whether stocked trout spawn with native steelhead is "very probably". And as to how often it occurs, the answer is "unknown".

Topic 2: Stocked trout - effect on other species:

Let's use an example here. One of the reasons no trout are being stocked in Coyote lake right now is because of a fear that stocked trout will have a bad impact on rare species like red-legged frogs. In other words, they'll eat their tadpoles (a full grown red-legged frog is too big for a trout to eat). Here's some more info on . It's the one that fills up Coyote and Anderson Lakes. OK, trout eating frogs - good concern. Now let's peel back the onion, starting some time back in the past. Let's start 500 years ago.

500 years ago Coyote Creek didn't have a dam or probably all that many people living around it. There were red-legged frogs and steelhead and king salmon and a lot of other critters living in the creek. During wet years the creek got more steelhead (steelhead are like that). With more steelhead around more red-legged frog tadpoles got eaten. In dry years there were less steelhead and likely less frog tadpoles got eaten. King Salmon don't feed when they go up to spawn, but they do get grumpy about things that get in their face so they might have killed a few frogs or tadpoles. Fundamentally, there was balance. That's what nature does when you leave it alone, it reaches balance points.

74 years ago Coyote Dam got built. 14 years later, Anderson Dam was built. Now the balance was gone. For sure less steelhead made it up the creek. What did this do to the frogs? Was it a happy day in frog land with the steelhead gone? Did the frog population explode with the two large lakes to live in and their many fresh miles of shoreline? Or did the frogs fare badly downstream of Anderson Dam because less water was available to live in? Did stocked trout in Coyote Lake spell doom for the frogs, however many happened to live there? Did anyone study any of this? Unlikely.

Point is, a new balance was reached and groups like the Center for Biological Diversity say this balance is wrong. They are saying that they know better what the balance should be and they have plans to enforce their view of the balance. Taking down the dams isn't an attainable goal so they are going after other things like stocked fish which have an effect on the balance. You can read what they have to say about stocked fish .

Now back to the topic at hand - ideas for balancing recreation with the agenda of the Center for Biological Diversity. Some thoughts that come to mind in addition to the sterile trout idea:

1. Stock lakes and streams with local fish. If the Southern Steelhead is a genetically distinct population, why not stock lake lakes with local fish? Costs increase but the genetics issue is addressed.

2. Micro-hatheries If you're going to stock with local fish, why not raise them locally? Now you've removed the invasive species problem. Sure there are costs here, but the Center for Biological Diversity clearly has ample cash to fire off lawsuits. Why not spend that on things like this instead? What a great opportunity for that group to win some friends in the fishing world.

3. Give up on some stream flow issues People need water and the dams in this state aren't coming down. Creek flows will never be what they once were because the total amount of water in the creek is not the same after people take a big chunk of it. If you can't stand that the creeks don't run like they used to, go fight for population control or move to a country like China where you can only have 1 child. Ahem.

4. Give up on some introduced fish species issues In some confined locations it may be worth it to kill off introduced fish in order to protect native fish species. That's already being done in some places. where they are shocking up bass, catfish and bluegill and killing them. You know something, I don't have a problem with that. But in places where you'll never be able to get rid of introduced fish without wholesale poisining, give up. We don't need to go the route that Japan has gone with mandatory catch and kill on bass, and we don't need an unrestricted limit on striped bass at the delta. Those aren't solutions, they're just feel good deals for environmentalists.

What will be very interesting with this trout stocking deal is finding out if the Center for Biological Diversity is willing to accept any sort of compromises like this, or if this is all just a guise to end fishing and hunting. I don't know yet but I've read a lot of their online literature and yesterday I ordered a book about their group called . If you give a damn about fishing and hunting, you should think about getting this book too.

In the end, there's one thing for sure. Humans love to play God and try to be lords of the animal kingdom, picking and choosing their favorite species and doing things to promote what they want. Let's hear your ideas for playing God, I've jotted down a few of mine.