New rganization formed to restore and protect sea-run brook trout

[salter]

Join the Sea Run Brook Trout Coalition (SRBTC) and help restore sea-run brook trout habitat, participate in population surveys and learn more about sonic and PIT tagging programs. When you join you will automatically be entered into our drawing for the first one hundred members. After SRBTC reaches 100 members, the Board of Directors will hold a drawing for a framed limited edition print of a Red Brook Salter by author & artist James Prosek.

Artist, author and activist James Prosek has created an original watercolor of a Red Brook sea-run brook trout to help launch a new nonprofit foundation, the Sea Run Brook Trout Coalition (SRBTC). The painting is a life-size rendering of a sea-run brook trout captured at Red Brook in Plymouth, Massachusetts. After being photographed, the brook trout was returned alive to Red Brook. The coalition will be selling 100 signed and numbered prints of the Red Brook salter as a kick off for our fundraising efforts. Prints are being offered either unframed (11x17”) $ 175.00, or framed $300.00, plus shipping charges. The frames are cherry, with museum-quality acid-free matting, backing, and UV-blocking Plexiglass.

http://www.searunbrookie.org

[CMP]

Oh Hooray, yet another single-issue, alphabet-soup group of hand-wringers to add to the already messy miasma of fisheries "management". Pardon me if I don't stand up and dance a jig...

CMP --123-3:-%--123-3

[salter]

Hand ringing, you might say so considering we have lost 90% of our native sea-run brook trout populations here in the Commonwealth since the dawn of the industrial revolution. I might add that each population is genetically unique to its watershed, thereby when we lose a population we are losing the genetic diversity of the species here in Massachusetts. Our NGO has nothing to do with management, the organization is however committed to coastal stream restoration, which of course benefits other species in trouble such as alewife, blueback herring and amercian eel.

And personally I could care less if you do/don't dance a Jig, Maringa or Waltz…

[Onshore]

Oh Hooray, yet another single-issue, alphabet-soup group of hand-wringers to add to the already messy miasma of fisheries "management". Pardon me if I don't stand up and dance a jig...CMP --123-3:-%--123-3

Hey, CMP,
I say more power to them. Massachusetts DMF has had it's treasury gutted to the extent that they don't have the manpower or funding to restore their coastal streams and your Alwife/River Herring are in serious decline from loss of habitat as well as from mid-water trawlers. What's the matter with a group of fishermen who want to donate their $ and raise money to support their sport, anyway?

If you'r not interested in it, don't join it or contribute to it but, why knock it?

[Perch]

Imagine CMP! More people trying to save and restore something wild and beautiful that we’ve P**sed away. When are they gonna stop distracting us so can get back to P**sing away other stuff?

[salter]

The whole restoration game boils down to money and being able to leverage past successes. I have been involved since the late 1970’s when Massachusetts was trying to develop a strain of sea-run brown trout for the Cape Cod streams; this program was being run by MDF&W biologist Joe Bergen. Back then Fran Smith and the Cape Cod chapter of Trout Unlimited were just beginning the restoration of the Quashnet River. Fran wanted to restore the tiny population of wild brook trout that were hanging on in the upper reaches of the Quashnet, by the golf course. Joe Bergen thought Fran (who is a plumber by trade) was crazy and Joe Bergen stated many times in front of both Fran and me that we would never have a salter fishery on the Quashnet on the scale of what existed back in the 1800’s, when salters where caught by the bushel basket, and big one too, up to 24 inches! Now 35 years later, the brook trout population in the Quashnet River has grown over 400%. The brook trout re-colonized the river after the state stopped stocking brown trout. During the fall 2010 population sampling conducted by MDF&W, we saw larger salters then in years past; a few were around 14+ inches. The success of the Quashnet restoration lead directly to the restoration of Red Brook, and the state now has a completely different view of sea-run brook trout and their restoration in Massachusetts. In the end the plumber was right on the mark and the biologist, Joe Bergen, was dead wrong. How’s that for a story you can take on the road!

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/Letort/June12007-13.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v220/Letort/June12007-25.jpg

[ShaneY]

I would like to participate. I think it's a win win. Unfortunately the website seems to be malfunctioning right now. Let me know what I can do to help.

[salter]

Hi Shane,

Website is back up and running!

[ShaneY]

I just signed up. Hey CMP, if you'd like I can send you pictures of all the great work that gets done by people who give a crap.:p