Tuesday, October 02, 2007
Trout growing with I-CARE project
Mark Taylor is outdoors editor at The Roanoke Times.
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As a professor of biology at Hollins University, Morgan Wilson's life is full of experiments.
The subjects of one of his latest ventures were glad to see him Sunday afternoon, circling eagerly when Wilson showed up on the banks of Carvin Creek on the western boundary of the campus.
Wilson tossed a handful of fish food into the creek and its resident rainbow trout boiled on the chow.
With these relatively new residents apparently thriving, Carvin Creek seemed an ideal setting for Trout Unlimited to announce a sweeping new conservation campaign that organizers hope could lead to restoration and/or improvements in trout populations in creeks along the Interstate 81 corridor.
The project has been dubbed the Interstate 81 Coldwater Area Restoration Effort I-CARE, for short.
John Ross, chair of the Virginia Council of TU, outlined the concept as cars and trucks roared nearby on the major traffic artery in Western Virginia.
"We are launching a long term -- and when I say long term I mean a generational commitment -- effort to restore spring creeks and mountain trout streams," Ross said.
I-CARE is not so much a sweeping project as it is a way to provide context that ties together restoration efforts in the region.
The area I-CARE covers is roughly 325 miles long and can stretch up to 60 miles wide. It overlaps most of Virginia's coldwater stream resources, many of which have been negatively affected by development.
While the Carvin Creek project was started before I-CARE came along, it represents the kind of efforts Ross and others hope will be undertaken on other waters by the state's 1,000 TU members and cooperating partners.
Running for more than a mile through and bordering the Hollins campus, Carvin Creek gets some water from releases from the Carvins Cove dam upstream. But much of its water comes from chilly springs.
The restoration project is rooted in a conversation between Wilson and Dover England, an avid fly angler from Roanoke and the president of the local TU chapter.
TU was looking for a project and Wilson wondered if Carvin Creek might be a potential site.
With the help of Department of Game and Inland Fisheries biologists, Wilson and TU members conducted an electroshock survey of the creek early last spring.
Then, after obtaining the necessary permits, the club purchased small brown and rainbow trout from a private hatchery to stock the stream.
Just how well the fish fared won't be known until a electroshock sampling effort later this fall, but some have clearly done well.
The rainbows, about 5 to 6 inches long when stocked in June, are now at least 12 inches long. The browns were smaller when stocked and have been tougher to spot, but they also appear to be doing well.
Of course, the trout have had the benefit of supplemental feeding three days a week.
Wilson, who's taught at Hollins for several years, carefully monitored temperatures in the well-shaded stream throughout the summer.
Temperatures showed a few spikes, but generally remained within acceptable levels -- despite record temperatures in August.
Next up, the team plans to look at potential habitat improvement projects on the stream, and must also develop a management strategy.
The creek is not open for fishing, but Wilson said he would like to see that change, probably with catch-and-release rules and a permitting system to control fishing pressure.
Funding the effort remains an issue.
The TU chapter is holding a raffle of a fishing kayak donated by Orvis and other prizes to raise money to continue supporting the project. (The drawing is Wednesday; tickets are available at the Orvis retail store in downtown Roanoke.)
The Carvin Creek project is also one of several efforts under consideration for additional financial support from Orvis, which is looking to expand its conservation efforts in and around the Roanoke Valley.
Gary Martel, chief of the Fisheries Division of the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, attended Sunday's briefing with the agency's director, Carlton Courter.
Martel said he is confident that the I-CARE concept will help encourage other groups and individuals to pursue restoration efforts on coldwater streams.
"This could be a turning point," Martel said.
Ross pointed out that the focus will be first on water, not on the trout.
"It's really a conservation thing," he said. "The fishing will take care of itself."
