Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave B.
Rainbows are no more or less costly to rear than the other 2 species. They're simply far more resistant to many pathogens that brooks, and to a bit lesser degree browns, are susceptible to. One of the few exceptions to this is 'whirling disease' which seems to primarily effect rainbows.
As far as PA not having issue, actually they have Furunculosis outbreaks at many of their hatcheries every year. They treat and stock the fish with little regard for the potential impacts on either existing wild pops or other species since furunculosis is not just a salmonid disease. There have been many outbreaks in other states that involved everything from smallmouth to sunnies.
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And yet, we never hear about any drastic affects to stocking furunculosis riddled brown trout into Pa's waters. With all of the diseased brooks and browns that NJ unloaded into many non trout production waters, there has been no report,of which I am aware, of the effects of those infected trout on other fish species within those waters.
Let's just keep dumping thousands of rainbows into all of the streams and hope they don't affect the existing "native" browns and brookies. With all of those rainbows being stocked, shouldn't they present incredible competition with the other two naturally producing species? Shouldn't they be the ones, by now, that are naturally spawning and reproducing on a wider scale? I'm waiting for someone to be "salmonidically correct" and demand sections of streams to be protected for wild rainbow trout production just like the ones for brooks and browns. If browns and brookies are the ones that naturally reproduce in the streams, then start stocking them again and cut back on the rainbows.
