A new take on rainbow trout - the good, the bad, or the ugly?

[Trout-Chaser]

My mom sent me a short newspaper reveiw from their local Seattle rag about a new book on trout:

An Entirely Synthetic Fish: How Rainbow Trout Beguiled America and Overran the World by Anders Halverson (2010, Yale University Press, 288 p.)

The article intrigued me, so I looked it up online. It will take a lot of anglers a major adjustment in thinking to absorb this one, but the author claims, in a nutshell, that the rainbow trout is a totally 'synthetic' fish that has been biologically engineered for many years and ultimately has ruined natural fisheries.

Here's a quote from the article:

"Over the decades, rainbows have been bred to grow faster, mature earlier, and breed at different times of the year. Culturists have tried to select for disease resistance, fecundity, and even such things as color (think lightening trout!), shape, and fighting ability (think tailwalkers!)."

Here's a couple reviews:

"A fascinating story of man's urge to cultivate and disseminate a beautiful coldwater fish-at times to the detriment of native species but also the joy of anglers who would not otherwise have the opportunity to catch a trout. A gripping blend of early American history, discussions on taxonomy, and questions of how best to preserve wildness and the indigenous in a world where the human relationship to Nature is complex and always changing."-James Prosek, author of Trout of the World (James Prosek )

"Anyone interested in life as metaphor will find here the fascinating historical story of how different people saw their highest ideals and aspirations through the lens of a single, uncommonly compelling fish. And like democracy-but with perhaps more success-they spread it around the world. This unusually well-written, interesting book deserves a place of honor for everyone who sees in trout more than ''just'' a fish."-Carl Safina, author of Song for the Blue Ocean, Eye of the Albatross, and The View From Lazy Point (Carl Safina )


Personally I don't see the great harm in stocking them in man-made lakes, etc. And I plan to read the book to see what this guy has to say. But my knee-jerk reaction to what I have read so far is that this is another example of how human beings have manipulated nature, thinking it was a great idea, and then had it come back to haunt them later.

If nothing else the topic may provide from some interesting online and shoreline discussion....

[callibaetis]

Ted Williams at Fly Rod and Reel on this book: "Great read. I'm in the middle of it. Drop everything and buy it."
http://www.flyrodreel.com/blogs/tedw...out-ecological

[City Dad]

Ted Williams at Fly Rod and Reel on this book: "Great read. I'm in the middle of it. Drop everything and buy it."
http://www.flyrodreel.com/blogs/tedw...out-ecological

so... is the Splendid Splinter's frozen head now reviewing books?

[DocSpotty]

I grew up fishing rainbows from the age of 5 and have sought them my whole life. Having studied trout taxonomy extensively the last 5 years this book merely brings to light what fisheries biologists have known for years. The stocks of rainbows spread worldwide well over a hundred years ago and still propagated today in most hatcheries are of "mutt" stock. The most favored story is these were "Shasta" rainbows but not in any remotely pure form. Dr. Robert Behnke, the leading authority of trout taxonomy, has traced the roots of the original hatchery stocks of rainbow trout, which were perpetuated in California, to be a mixture of inland McCloud river redbands, coastal steelhead, and several other stocks. Over the years these have been bred for ability to survive in hatcheries and everything else stated in Trout Chasers post. Stocking them everywhere has lead to the near eradication of native cutthroat trout, they are introgressed into most stocks of golden trout....in short....they are a blight which has had a enormously detrimental effect on other native fisheries. This same attitude of our supposed ability to manipulate nature with our great "science", similarly has led to the near total annihilation of most salmon stocks in the US.

California should take this as a particular issue as there is no other state with so many subspecies of both rainbows and cutthroats. The origination of the coastal rainbow and steelhead is postulated to have been in the San Diego area. Without intervention by people in the know, frequently referred to by many fishermen as eco nuts, etc.., many native trout stocks would have been overrun by rainbows, brown trout, brook trout and others.

I grew up fishing for stockers in Holy Jim Canyon, up the road from O'Neill Park in Southern Cal....that was 40 years ago. There is a place for stocking trout where they can't affect other stocks for the put and take fishery. It's hard to imagine but rainbow trout are only native in the US to California, Oregon, Washington, part of Idaho, only 1 stream in Montana, and a few streams in Nevada...they existed nowhere else. All the interior states had native stocks of cutthroat trout which have been reduced to only 3% of their native distribution.

We are not God.....but often pretend to be......to our detriment....

Brian