December 2007

MA / RI Council of Trout Unlimited Votes to Fund “Salter” Trout PIT Tagging Project

Today, with recent advances in technology, even a trout’s whereabouts can be known.

In a joint project with WEBNRR, Mass Wildlife and Trout Unlimited, some very special fish are being tracked using state of the art technology.

By placing a tiny radio frequency identification tag in trout, TU volunteers in Massachusetts and Rhode Island can now track the whereabouts of certain key fish as they move throughout a stream or estuary. This will give TU and state biologists information on the migratory habits of a very special kind of brook trout that returns to fresh water streams to spawn, but live out some portion of their lives in salt water.

The RF tag is a Passive Integrated Transponder (PIT) which means it doesn’t require energy. Needing no battery, it can be very tiny. When hit by a signal, the tag responds by transmitting a unique code that is picked up by an antenna and transmitted to a digital recorder. Volunteers from TU chapters, working under the supervision of Mass Wildlife collect live trout and carefully implant the fish with 12 mm PIT tags which are approximately the size of a grain of rice. These fish which were once manually counted with catch report forms left in a streamside wooden box by voluntary fishermen can now be counted electronically, either by a fixed antenna or by a modern day fisherman “fishing” with a wand that picks up a signal from tagged fish.

PIT tagging technology is well established for use in tracking salmon and other anadromous fish, and has been used by TU volunteers and state fisheries biologists across the country to track fish moving from lake to stream and from stream to brook to understand migratory, foraging and breeding behavior.

These particular trout are special not only because they live in fresh and salt water, but more because TU volunteers working with scientific partners at WBNRR and Mass Wildlife have determined that these fish are aboriginal fish genetically unique to the area whose ancestors have been living in these streams for centuries and who have survived decades of unintentional efforts to eradicate them. TU reports that for most all of the Eastern United States, the native brook trout has been eradicated or reduced to less than 5 % of the original population.

Brook trout have come to be known as sentinel species – a “canary in the coal mine” that when present is found only in waters that are clean and cold and free of herbicides, pesticides and other pollutants. TU volunteers working in the seventies to improve fish habitat on Cape Cod discovered something very interesting. Trout streams which had their headwaters replaced with cranberry bogs and dams and which have been repeatedly stocked with hatchery raised trout were in very bad shape. Despite many decades of increasing habitat degradation and heavy fishing pressure, biologists and fishermen found a very small but very robust population of brook trout there that didn’t quite fit in the picture.

Local reports going back years spoke of “salters” – large, healthy brightly colored brook trout which lived most of their lives in the ocean, and much like the trout’s cousin the salmon, returned to their stream of origin to spawn. Were these actually “salters” survivors and could this population be somehow restored?

Volunteers lobbied to stop stocking the brook with hatchery fish to see if the presumed native sea run brook trout could recover – and recover they did. Thousands of hours of habitat restoration improved the stream flow and surrounding vegetation. This helped to reduce predation and increase oxygen and the presence of insects and insect larva as food for trout. TU, along with the state’s help, put the stream into “catch and release” status meaning no fishermen could catch fish unless they promised to release them unharmed.

Result? Over a period of a few years, the local trout population rebounded dramatically. Local TU volunteers noticed and started to look around at other streams in the area that might harbor similar populations and respond to similar efforts.

Local TU volunteer Fran Smith has not only created the original plan for this, he has contributed, recruited and managed tens of thousands of hours of volunteer work. The results are far broader than the return of these few salters. Fran has been awarded numerous local, federal and international “Environmental Hero” awards honoring his vision and leadership. Recently he received a gold medal from the United Nations Environmental Program.

Through Fran’s work, millions of dollars have been raised to put key watershed land into conservation and ongoing restoration on Cape Cod. “Trout Circle” type housing developments have been halted, and whole classes of volunteer “habit restoration” specialists have been spawned by his work. Further streams and watersheds, notably Red Brook in Wareham and Plymouth MA have been put in trust for similar restoration efforts. From the work of one extremely dedicated fisherman bent on giving some fishing days over to “work days” every third Sunday of the month, many things will continue to grow and flourish.

Recent scientific analysis spurred on by TU activists and state biologists revealed that these salters were indeed genetically unique; not only they had not interbred with hatchery fish, they were unique genetically to each particular stream.

Now, with a firm understanding of this population of wild, aboriginal trout, scientists, and the local TU volunteers who had become local experts on these special fish, were spurred on to learn more. With this allocation of funds, fishermen, biologists and land managers can easily tag, track and record the migratory and behavioral patterns of countless salter progeny.

Some fishermen think of “fishing days ” and "catching days ”. Fran Smith has popularized a whole new type of days called “working days” and boy has that work added up. New technology, along with the support from sponsoring organizations will insure this work continues to add up to expanding scientific understanding.

Not bad for a fisherman confronted with a fishless day on Cape Cod.

Read a recent (Dec 2007) Red Brook Journal Report from Warren Winders >>here

Sept 2006 Red Brook Partners Remove Robbins Dike

Read the April 2005 issue of the occasional (and excellent) Red Brook Journal

Read more about Brook Trout Salvelinus fontinalis >>here

Read More about: Bringing Back Native Brookies | Red Brook Reserve | The Quashnet | Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture | Ongoing Research

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Written by Geoffrey Day with ample help from TU volunteers Mike Hopper and Warren Winders and
with special thanks to those who put in the time: Fran Smith, Brendan Annette (WBNERR),
Steve Hurley, Mass Wildlife (MA DFW), the Cape Cod and Southeastern Mass Chapters of TU and
the TU Council of MA / RI.

For more information, contact Geoffrey Day, (webmaster at ma-ri-tu-council.org) or at 617-576-2100