CA DFG Trout Stocking Lawsuit

[ll kaidoy ll]

Here in CA, there has been a lawsuit against the DFG regarding their trout stocking program. While written at a very high level, the purpose of this thread is to spread the word about this issue. While this is mainly dealing with trout, this can have major implications that can affect other popular inland fisheries game fish species such as bass and maybe even Kokanee not only here in CA, but also other potential states. Why might you ask?

In my opinion, any state can be on the Center for Biological Diversity's "hit list." The CBD is located in many states including Oregon, Nevada, and California. They're the ones who have brought the lawsuit against CA's DFG. The main contact person for the CA DFG lawsuit is Noah Greenwald, who is based out of Portland, Oregon. This has led me to think that states such as Oregon, Washington, Colorado, Idaho, etc. are all "fair game" now.

I realize that trout are the major issue at stake here in CA, but I did mention bass as well as Kokanee. I mentioned bass because here in CA, we have many trophy bass lakes where the bass feed on trout. I mentioned Kokanee because if the CBD can come up with scientific evidence that Kokanee can have an impact on any lake's natural balance of its ecosystem, they can be on the chopping block as well.

Please read Rob's summary of the issue at stake here in CA below.

Words from Rob Belloni:

The Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) is an environmental group. Their goal is to protect native species. In 2007 they sued the California Dept. of Fish and Game (DFG). They said that stocking trout in California is bad for native species. They said that stocked trout eat native frogs. They said stocked trout eat insects that native birds could have eaten instead. They said that stocked trout could breed with native trout/steelhead and mess up the gene pool.

They sued under an act called the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). This act says that any time the state government does a project, they have to take in to account the environment. In 2007, the CBD didn't win outright but they won a lot. They made the DFG go and evaluate trout stocking through a formal process. They also got a judge to rule that certain places where trout are stocked shouldn't be stocked any more while DFG went and did their evaluation. That's why a lot of places haven't gotten stocked with trout for the last few years.

This year DFG finished their evaluation. They put out a new set of rules to determine if a place gets stocked with trout or not. I've reviewed these rules and talked with the important people at DFG about how these rules will work in real life. These are pretty good rules. They're pretty reasonable. They're not perfect, but they're a great start. Most people at the DFG want to stock trout, but they also want to protect native species where it's reasonable.

The CBD looked at these new rules the DFG put out and they said they are bad. They said the rules are too vague. They said the rules don't provide enough protection. They didn't sue again, but they filed something with the judge in the case called a Writ of Mandate. That's a fancy way of telling the judge that the DFG did such a bad job that the judge should give the DFG a big slap on the wrist and send them back to do their evaluation over again and make new rules - rules that the CBD likes.

The judge has to look at this Writ of Mandate and decide what to do. I am working hard to see how we can convince the judge that the DFG has done their job already and shouldn't have to do it again. I don't have all the answers yet, but I'm forming a group to keep the CBD from going too far. A rough draft of what we believe in is being developed at the moment.

There are a lot of reasons why trout stocking is important to us fishermen. I'm worried that without trout, many lakes will close down because not enough people will come to fish. I'm worried kids won't get their start in fishing because they won't have trout to fish for. I'm worried the CBD will go too far to do things that sound good on paper but are bad in real life. I'm worried about letting people who don't really understand fish be in charge of the fish.

Like I mentioned before, we want to get the word out to the fishing community about this topic, which is why I'm posting this. We need help from lawyers especially, so if any of you are lawyers or know lawyers who can help, please let us know! If you just want to write to talk about the issue, that's great too.

If you would like more detailed information regarding this issue in its entirety, please click here.

Feel free to post your thoughts here on this thread as we will be monitoring your responses and outreaches to help!

Thanks!

 

[skookum9]

You are right that this can happen in any state, it has already been somewhat happening here in Oregon. There is a local college here that is the main educational facility for Oregon's fish and wildlife services as well as the forestry and agricultural industries that has been pushing this issue hard on our state. They seem to treat all planted/stocked fish the same and say that we need to get rid of them and go back to how it used to be before we stocked any of the water's. One of their top fish to get rid of is my favorite, the brook trout, and they claim that we don't know enough about their impact on our water's and we should get rid of them until we know more. These fools don't take into consideration that these fish have been here for more than 100 year's and there is more of a chance that we would see harmful effects from their removal than we will from their existance. These are the same fools that claim evolution is the way this world came about and in the same breath they want to make sure that evolution never happens. Unfortunately, there is a case in which I must agree with them. We've had too many cases here in this state where lakes were destroyed by live bait fishermen. People who use goldfish or shiner's or some other baitfish cause the population explosion of such invasive species. Also, the bass fishermen who think that every lake should have bass in it and thus illegally introduce bass to previously great trout waters. Bass have destroyed too many trout waters here and it is my most sincere desire to have them driven out of this state except in designated bass water's. I consider them to be a trash fish but understand they do have their place and that there are some people who like to catch and possibly even eat them. I do think that when a state fish and game organization makes a decision to plant a species of fish it should only be with great consideration for the effects and if the outcome is some horrible result, action must be taken to correct its mistakes. A perfect example of this is the mysis shrimp. But when fish have been planted in a water for more than a certain number of years and there have been no harmful results apparent, it should be considered as good as natural. Unfortunately, these people you are talking about don't care anything about fish, I suppose because maybe they can't see them and so are more worried about the critter's they can see. Although, from what I've seen, the more useful a critter is and the more sportsmen care about it, the more these "greenies" would like to see it go away. Most of us would like to make improvements by making things better. These character's would like make improvements by making things worse. Too much college education for their capacity for understanding.