Thursday, July 31, 2008
Why stockings are cut back
Bill Cochran
Recent mail
BILL: I am puzzled over the recent announcement by the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries that it would cut back on stockings at the Big Tumbling Creek and Crooked Creek pay areas from six times a week to three times a week. This is supposed to be an effort to save on the gas it takes to haul trout from the hatcheries to the streams. But I understand that both streams have fenced holding ponds where fish can be delivered once a week and held for stocking as required. You might want to check into this.
L.A.
L.A.: Both streams do have trout raceways which were used in the past to hold trout for stocking purposes, says Ron Southwick, assistant director of the DGIF Fish Division. At that time -- prior to the 1990s -- there was a fulltime staff person at the areas to maintain them, stock trout and provide security. That no longer is the case. The fulltime staff person has been cut and the hatcheries that deliver the fish now do the stocking and maintain the areas. The raceways have not been used for some time.
“I did consider using the raceways, but poaching was a serious problem in the raceways even when we had staff living on site,” said Southwick. “It was not unusual to find the fencing cut and see tangled lines and lures in the raceways. Also, the raceways would need a lot of maintenance to get them back into operation, and fish must be fed and the raceways cleaned on a regular basis, so having fish on site would still require daily trips to the facilities.”
Southwick said savings under the new plan would come by squeezing five-to-six days of work into three.
BILL
