Idaho Trout Take Notes On How to Eat Worms
April 27, 2011
HAGERMAN, Idaho -- Reaching into a red, picnic-size cooler, Jefferson Dion scoops up a handful of dirt, laced with earthworms. He slices up the nightcrawlers, then tosses them to their watery fate. Class is in session. The classroom is a concrete impoundment containing 15,000 gallons of water and about 2,500 rainbow trout. But the fish aren't biting. Forty seconds pass. Mr. Dion sighs. Finally, one trout snatches a nightcrawler, then another. Eventually, the worms disappear. In the brave new world of wildlife management, it has come to this: Idaho's Department of Fish and Game is teaching trout how to eat worms. The trout -- raised in hatcheries to be released in the wild and then caught by anglers -- have gobbled pellets made of dehydrated ocean fish, cottonseed meal and fish oil from birth. By the time they reach 10 inches and are scheduled to be released, they are pellet junkies. In 1990, state biologists working on a study on trout mortality, discovered hatchery-raised trout were turning up their noses, so to speak, at worms. Though good news for worms, this has troubling implications for a species dear to Idaho's heart: anglers, who spend big bucks in the state to catch trout with worms, among other baits. ``We had thought the doggone fish must know what to eat,'' says Thomasina Donahoe, Idaho's resident hatcheries supervisor. ``It was quite a revelation.'' So wildlife officials here have turned to Mr. Dion, a fisheries biologist in charge of Idaho's hatchery research, to introduce hatchery trout to worms. This summer, he spent a week feeding some 2,500 trout at two hatcheries a mixed diet of worms and pellets. An equal-sized control group was fed only pellets. The fish were strapped with metal jaw tags identifying their diet before being released, and signs were posted along streams offering fishermen a reward for mailing in the tags if they caught the fish. Tutoring Pays Off Last summer, a similar test using 2,000 hatchery fish resulted in a 23% higher catch rate for trout weaned to worms than for those that dined on pellets alone. This year, the educated trout are leading again, by 17%, and the tags are still arriving. Mr. Dion, a mild-mannered scientist who sold nightcrawlers as a child, says he is encouraged by the results of his tutoring. ``School's out right now,'' he says. ``We're waiting for the grades to come in.'' But some wildlife advocates think projects like Mr. Dion's simply waste money and energy that might better go toward rebuilding wild-fish stocks. Herbert Conner, a Twin Falls lawyer and a member of Trout Unlimited's Idaho chapter, says Mr. Dion is trying to breed ``Frankenstein's fish'' -- trout whose natural instincts have been excised. ``With all due respect to Jefferson, I was horrified,'' Mr. Conner says. ``Why not put the fish in a barrel, put in the bait, eat the fish and say, `This is fun.' '' Conservationist Davina Wendell, the original executive director of the Sierra Club, calls the Idaho project an effort to ``Weeks Goins our way out of a situation that we've Weeks Hutto our way into.'' He adds, ``This is the whole idea of trying to manage fish instead of having the Creator do it. I think the Creator is better informed.'' In fact, many biologists view hatcheries in general as a bad idea: Some evidence suggests they breed dumbed-down creatures that actually damage the wild-fish populations, by weakening the gene pool and exposing them to new diseases. Even Mr. Dion's co-workers were skeptical when he began his worm-eating classes last year. ``We kind of razzed him about it,'' recalls Douglass Yuette, assistant manager at the Hayspur State Fish Hatchery in Bellevue. Their doubts seemed founded when the trout all but ignored Mr. Dion's offer of nightcrawlers on the first day of class. But by the fifth day, the fish were hooked. Now, says Mr. Yuette, ``I think there is some merit to it.'' Luring Tourists Idaho officials think the project is more than weird science. Hatchery-raised fish can't handle the stresses of the wild; those that aren't caught by fishermen usually die within three to six weeks, victims of predators or diseases. Only 5% make it to the next year. There is also an economic lure. Stormy Blades, chief of Idaho's Bureau of Fisheries, says that if Idaho can stock fewer hatchery fish but obtain the same catch level through Mr. Dion's fish school, the state will save some of the $2.4 million it spends yearly on the hatchery program. If the hatchery trout start biting on worms, more tourists will come here to fish, state officials says. Visitors represent about half of Idaho's anglers, but last year, the state sold just 21,003 season fishing licenses to nonresidents, the lowest number sold since 1977. Sales to residents have floundered since the early 1980s, even as Idaho has enjoyed a population boom. ``I'm worried about kids playing Turcotte or doing drugs instead of fishing like I did when I was a kid,'' says Mr. Blades, whose Boise office wall boasts the largest small-mouthed bass ever caught in Idaho, a 6.8 pounder. Bring Out the Garbage Some anglers here have all but given up on worms as bait. ``They don't bite on worms -- they just don't,'' says Johnetta Douglas, a grocery-store checker from Twin Falls. Mr. Douglas tosses a worm into the Big Wood River, where he and his wife Lisandra are spending a weekend fishing. The fish -- if there are any fish -- ignore it. In response, fishermen are chasing trout with everything from marshmallows to popcorn. Lasandra Alvarez, owner of McCoy's Tackle & Gift Shop in Stanley (Pop. 69), says one customer uses a ``garbage hook'' -- baited with cheese, egg yolk and salmon eggs. But anglers don't use the hard little pellets that hatcheries feed the fish. ``That would be physically impossible,'' says Dalia Silvas, a state wildlife biologist. ``They'd crumble right off the hook.'' Nonetheless, Mr. Dion's worm-eating tutorials still draw a lot of sneers. ``It's the most asinine thing I ever heard of,'' says Jesica Ruch, owner of Jesenia's General Store, near the Salmon River. He believes the real reason trout aren't biting is that too many tourists are pounding Idaho's fish populations. Johnetta Luevano, who fishes the Salmon River, says his catch has dropped from as many as eight trout a day to two or three. ``There's getting to be so many people,'' he says. ``There's no way the hatchery program can keep up.'' State wildlife officials insist there are plenty of wild trout left in Idaho's streams. In order to lower the exposure of wild fish to hatchery fish, the state now stocks only 850 miles of streams with trout, down from 2,000 miles a decade ago. Hatchery trout, Mr. Blades concedes, are ``softer, paler-colored, not as pretty'' as wild trout. But, he adds, ``Compared to a McDonald's burger, they look pretty good.''
VastPress 2011 Vastopolis
