At the FS meeting we talked with the fish expert who pointedly said that the biggest threat to the brook trout is the introduction of non-native species. Wheres SELC about this????

http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=47087

So theres 140,000 rainbow trout tossed into the river FOR the fishermen over 25 weeks during the season.

Just like the Red Wolf. They cannot reestablish because the coyote population has filled it's niche. Same with Rainbows and Browns. They are more aggressive and will take over territory where Brooks live. The only help the Brook trout have is natural barriers such as waterfalls.

Tu knows this. The Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture acutally published a paper in December of 2005 that says that the top 5 perturbations for the brook trout are high water temperature, agriculture, riparian condition, one or more non-native fish species, and urbanization. They go on to say that "The potential impact of stocking hatchery-reared trout on top of self-sustaining brook trout populations include genetic alteration due to interbreeding or alterd selection pressures, displacement, and intoduction of diseases." Here is a link to that document. Have fun reading...

http://www.mmbtu.org/Conserving_Eastern_Brook_Trout.pdf

But be careful, TU wrote the 2006 document for EBTJV and says that sedimetation is the #3 problem, followed by #4, non-native species.

http://www.easternbrooktrout.org/docs/brookiereportfinal.pdf

hmm...the order on their list is different than the forest services list...

and on page 10 their expert opinions indicate that non-native fish and rainbow trout are the biggest threats impacting about 70% of the brook trout area in NC....I dont disagree enough to say that there is no impact of OHV use on the streams but I dont believe that there is a significant impact on the whole area the brook trout use to breed and the impact isnt comparable to the damage caused by fishing and stocking the river with nonnative species.

Thats where the FS got their list...that explains it.