Fall Trout Stocking

[AndyS]

Circa 1970:
NEW JERSEY'S stocking steelhead trout and chinook salmon in the Raritan River has infuriated the Hudson River Fishermen's Association.
John Cronin, the association's riverkeeper, said that the unheralded introduction of what he called exotic species to the Hudson estuary was thoughtless and may harm indigenous species, including the striped bass and shad, that use the estuary in all or portions of their life cycles.
Both the chinook, or king, salmon and the steelhead (a migratory strain of rainbow trout) are West Coast species, as is the coho salmon. All three have been widely introduced elsewhere, including Lake Ontario. The chinook is the largest salmonoid (trout, salmon or any of the whitefishes) in North America, with a few specimens weighing over 100 pounds.
''The introduction should not have been a casual process,'' Cronin said. ''A lot of potential consequences haven't been examined, including the straying of adult chinook into the Hudson.''
Cronin says his group, a 22-year-old, 500-member conservation organization, knew nothing of the Raritan endeavor, including last year's stocking, until just before the most recent release earlier this month.
Cronin said that New Jersey should have informed the public and adjacent states of its plan, and should have been required to prove that the introduction would not be harmful. There is no law requiring the state to do so.
The Raritan project evolved out of a similar one New Jersey began contemplating for the Delaware several years ago in which steelheads, coho and chinook were being considered for introduction. When that idea became public, strong opposition to it developed, mainly from New York state, but also from Pennsylvania. Implementation of that plan is stalled pending the results of an environmental impact study. Such a study was not called for on the Raritan, which flows into Raritan Bay at Perth Amboy, presumably because it is within New Jersey's borders.
The opponents of the Delaware plan said they saw no justification for running the risk of harming the native brown and rainbow trout fishery in the upper reaches of the Delaware, a fishery they described as being unequaled east of the Mississippi. The impact statement will presumably determine whether such a risk exists. Meanwhile, the Delaware River Defense Coalition, a group made up of various chapters of Trout Unlimited, the Theodore Gordon Flyfishers and the Federation of Fly Fishermen, is working against New Jersey's plan for the Delaware.