Trout Eradication in NSW

John Coles, President, Sydney Fly Rodders' Club

Over the last couple of months the Sydney Morning Herald (SMH) environment writer James Woodford has gone on the attack putting trout in his sights, referring to them as noxious predators and calling for their eradication. It concerns me that his articles are to a large part factually incorrect, but a bigger concern is that the paper is misinforming the general public about trout. Trout are not listed as a noxious species in NSW. In fact carp aren't either; something I have been pressing the NSW Premier Bob Carr to remedy for some time.

In NSW we have the Threatened Species Legislation administered by the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, and the Fisheries Management Act administered by Fisheries. The Fisheries Management act deals with fish, and the Threatened Species legislation deals with amphibians (ie frogs) and species other than fish. At present, under the Fisheries Management Act the stocking of fish outside their natural range (this includes trout and natives) has been listed by the Fisheries Scientific Committee as an endangering process. This means that stocking fish outside their natural range (ie anywhere for trout) is considered to threaten certain species of fish and aquatic life, such as Macquarie perch.

The Threatened Species Legislation lists endangered species including endangered frogs in streams in the Monaro and Central Tablelands.

Currently stocking trout has been banned in at least 5 NSW trout streams. This has resulted from the recommendation of the Fisheries Scientific Committee. The deputy chairman of the committee and research fellow at the Australian Museum, John Paxton is quoted in the latest SMH article as saying "I have always thought they (trout) are one of the most noxious species in Australia". If indeed he actually did say this one would have to question his position on the committee, and the validity of any of the findings made by the committee under his chairmanship, because clearly the committee cannot be seen to be unbiased, or scientifically objective if it's chair is expounding such views publicly. I have not seen anything from Paxton refuting that he made the statements quoted in the article.

It is well researched and documented in the scientific literature. Prominent Australian frog expert Dr Mike Tyler from the University of Adelaide believes glyphosate based weedkillers, such as Round Up may be an important contributing factor to the decline of frog populations along with degradation of the environment, agricultural pollution and climate change. Brian Dixon of the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada has been researching the effects of pesticides in waterways. He has found that the frogs' natural immune systems were being damaged by minute amounts of common pesticides and believes this could explain their worldwide disappearance, since it leaves them wide open to disease. Well down the list is predatory activity by trout and other species, yet banning of trout stocking is the government's first response.

In some cases trout were introduced over 130 years ago into these streams. Surely if trout are such a significant threat in these streams they would have wiped out the endangered frogs long ago. Frog populations all over the world are disappearing at an alarming rate and many of the causes are man-made and have little to do with direct predation by trout. For example, at a recent meeting a National Parks officer explained that recently it had been discovered that many of the well meaning frog researchers were breeding frogs in captivity that when released back into their native habitat actually passed onto the wild frogs a fungus that was killing the whole population!

Obviously banning trout stocking is just a cynical political reaction to mollify the uninformed masses, one that conveniently obscures the real, hard to tackle issues and gives the politicians something to crow about and make believe they are actually doing something about the problem. That the papers are running with this nonsense is unfortunate for the endangered species, the environment and the fishing industry. The Nature Conservation Council apparently has also jumped onto the bandwagon, its executive officer Kathryn Ridge being quoted in the article as stating, "We should be conducting a trout eradication program".

It's too easy to just point the finger at trout and to say "lets eradicate them". If this did occur what would we be left with anyway? Do the groups calling for such actions actually expect that eradication of trout will have any significant impact on the sad situation we call our inland waterways? The truth is that over 99% of biomass in our inland rivers is carp (yes that is correct). Removing trout will have no environmental benefit in practice, except possibly in a few previously unstocked and pristine streams. No one would oppose this if controlled scientific studies, both before and after, were conducted so we can actually confirm the effect if any, or to find out what the real problem is.

But the force with which these groups pursue this trout eradication agenda indicates they must believe it would achieve something. Either that or they have some unjustifiable prejudice. All that trout eradication would do is free up a sliver of extra space for carp and to resign to complete apathy the 100's of thousands of people who fish and care about the state of our rivers.

Whilst there is something in our rivers of interest to the community, they will give a damn. We know we cannot instantly spend the many billions necessary to restore our highly modified and degraded waterways so that our once plentiful native fish can again breed naturally, unencumbered by the 10's of thousands (30, 000 in NSW alone) of man made structures that prevent their natural migration and breeding cycles and favour those of carp. The truth is that it could take a lifetime or more of dedicated effort simply to get our waterways to a state where native fish can breed naturally and effectively. I feel that only when we have achieved this modicum of natural balance then perhaps in some areas we should consider phasing out trout in favour of wild native fish.

I am sure that most anglers would consider themselves to be conservation minded and would never dispute that if trout can be clearly identified as the primary threat to an endangered species then clearly something has to be done, but surely not the total eradication of all trout in Australia, as it appears is called for by the Nature Conservation Council? Rainbow and Brown trout have been transported all over the world and now thrive on all continents. I am not saying this is right or wrong but trout certainly have brought a great deal of wealth and happiness to millions of people. Can you imagine New Zealand, Argentina or Tasmania without a trout/ salmon based industry? Can you imagine a more healthy state of the environment than the environment in these countries? The truth is it's hard to find a better environment than one in which trout do well, because trout and our native fishes, unlike carp, require a very clean healthy environment to survive. We don't have a healthy environment in most NSW rivers, and that is why we must stock both trout and native fish. We have hundreds of impoundments and dams that prevent fish breeding and fish migration, thus only stocked fish, trout or natives can actually survive in these waters.

Hopefully the NSW Government will have to look at the real scientific evidence and weigh it up against the multi million dollar trout fishing industry and the economic and social impact it's scaling down would have on the economy and on many small rural towns that are the centres of these fishing areas.

I urge all anglers to take more notice of what's happening. Don't stand by and let a few well organised groups drive this purely political and environmentally destructive agenda through articles like James Woodford's. Stand up for your rights, join a club, write to your local member of Parliament, your Minister for Fisheries, the Environment or your Premier, let them know your feelings. If you are in another state don't think "poor old NSW" and "it won't happen here" because its probably already in motion. Together we can be a voice heard, a voice of reason. If we just sit by all that will be left of trout fishing in NSW and Australia will be our fond memories and old copies of fishing magazinesrecording the rich heritage of a pastime that is our passion and for many their livelihood.

Source: http://www.sydneyflyrodders.com.au/club_news.html#eradication