MOUNTAIN JOURNAL • January 13, 2021
While much of our emphasis is on habitat, nonnative fish are arguably the biggest threat to our native trout today. When you consider state-sponsored introductions — stocking and transfers, including trout; and private stocking, often organization-sponsored; and the in-migration of stocked fish from a secondary source; and angler-initiated “bucket-biology,” and nonnative minnows resulting from the illegal and legal use of live fish as bait—it’s likely nothing even comes close. The entire St. John River system in Maine, once the longest wilderness native brook trout river in the country, is now nearly devoid of such as a result of the introduction of highly invasive nonnative muskellunge. The Rapid River in Maine, one of the finest wild native trout rivers in the nation, is now infested with highly invasive smallmouth bass. These invaders got there via an illegal stocking downstream. No river in Maine has survived a bass introduction unscathed. ~ Bob Mallard