Count Finds Fewer Trout In Batten Kill

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(Host) Fishery biologists found fewer wild trout in the Batten Kill this year than they expected.

That’s a reversal of recent trends. For the past few years, the number of fish had been bouncing back in the famous Bennington County trout stream.

Scientists say the rainy summer of 2009 may be to blame.

VPR’s Susan Keese has more.

(Generator sound, Ken Cox counts fish in background)

(Keese) Since 2006 scientists have been hauling rocks and tree trunks into the Batten Kill.  

They think a decline in the river’s wild brown and brook trout may be linked to the gradual removal of impediments and overhanging trees – that it may have left the fish with nowhere to hide from predators or take cover in harsh weather. So they’ve been putting the debris back.

(Ken Cox) "209 brown trout.  244, here’s a nice brook trout."

(Keese) To determine whether their plan is working biologists from the state and U.S. Fish and wildlife agencies literally count the fish each year

It’s an interesting sight.  A wall of biologists in chest waders 12-men-wide advances upstream, dragging generators on canoes. They shock the water out ahead with long poles. Then they catch the temporarily stunned fish in nets and deposit them in cages.

 (Cox) "That’s good. OK. I think we can take the rest on the next bucket."

(Keese) That’s Ken Cox, a wildlife biologist for the Vermont Department of Fish and Wildlife, counting the fish on a late September day. The count was scheduled for August but had to be delayed because of high water levels.  

During an earlier count in July, the water was so high; the pools where scientists attempted to count the fish were overflowing, and barely accessible. Cox has spent the past month or so evaluating the results.  Fish numbers in pools in the research area went from 830 fish per mile in 2008 to 187 this year. 

(Cox) "That’s, you know, a major drop."

(Keese) Now Cox thinks all the rain may have skewed the research.

(Cox) "And even though the conditions in late September were quite favorable to electro fishing, I think a factor that came into play was,  the fish were approaching spawning season and moving out of their summer habitat, so I think that that may explain some of the results."

(Keese) Cox says the only stretch of river that had an increase in fish was a control area that had shown extremely low populations in the past.

(Cox) "So I think all of this points to this season being very atypical for sampling and that we may not be taking a picture of the population as it normally would be."

(Keese) The study was intended to last from 2005 through 2010, but Cox says the agency will add another year to its data collection, continuing through 2011.

He says that will give scientists the time they need to better evaluate whether this year’s numbers are valid.

For VPR News, I’m Susan Keese.

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