The Pittsfield-based Berkshire Environmental Action Team, or BEAT, calls its new effort “Stop Non-Native Fish Stocking.”
“Fish are obviously part of the entire food chain. They are fed on by birds and other wildlife like mammals, they also contribute to the aquatic ecosystem. They're eating macro invertebrates, they're interacting with zooplankton, phytoplankton, all of these things," said Chelsey Simmons, BEAT’s stewardship director. “They're also a big part of just the Berkshire culture. People love fishing, there are a lot of anglers, and we have a lot of cold-water streams and tributaries here in Berkshire County.”
As the campaign’s name says plainly, BEAT is calling on the government of Massachusetts to end its routine of introducing fish from other ecosystems into the Bay State’s environment.
“MassWildlife, who does the state's fish stocking, currently operates five fish hatcheries that collectively release around half a million trout per year into Massachusetts waters — rivers, lakes, streams, ponds — and nearly all of these fish are nonnative species bred solely to support recreational fishing, not to restore native ecosystems or native populations," explained Simmons, who equates the situation to factory farming. “Stocked fish are raised in hatcheries, which are these indoor facilities where fish eggs are gathered, bred, and raised in artificial conditions, and then fed pellets in a controlled environment before being released into natural waters. And it's important to note that hatcheries are notorious greenhouse gas polluters, and they also discharge significant waste into waterways.”
Those pellets are laden with antibiotics, and are made up of byproducts like blood meal and poultry meal and feather meal.
“The practice of fish stocking is often framed as harmless or even beneficial," Simmons continued. "Yet, decades of research across the United States and the entire world really show that introducing nonnative trout disrupts freshwater ecosystems and causes native species to decline, because stocked fish compete with native species for food and habitat, they alter aquatic food webs, and they increase stress on ecosystems that are already strained by a warming climate.”
The hatchery-bred fish are also delicate creatures, which Simmons says adds a wasteful and cruel shade to the stocking.
“The mortality rate of stocked fish is astronomical, and even MassWildlife itself has stated that most stocked fish die very shortly after they release them because they're just not equipped with being in these natural environments," she told WAMC. "They try to eat things like sticks and rocks because they're used to being fed these pellets, and there are some studies that point to the die offs being between 67% to over 90% of stocked fish just weeks to months after release.”
Simmons says MassWildlife hasn’t done the comprehensive statewide research needed to properly evaluate the ecological impacts of routine stocking.
“Right now, we're definitely losing our only native trout, the eastern brook trout," she said. "The populations have been in decline in its native range here in the eastern part of the US, have been in decline for decades, and MassWildlife routinely stocks brown trout, which is this aggressive, nonnative species that can honestly be kind of like invasive.”
In a statement to WAMC, MassWildlife defended its trout stocking approach as both popular and a key tool to expanding recreational fishing in the commonwealth, addressing food security, and supporting “nature-based economies.” The agency maintains it is “committed to the conservation of wild trout, focusing on habitat protection and conservation, improving water quality and quantity, and restoring connectivity.”
Simmons says the commonwealth needs to take off the rose-colored glasses.
“They're supposed to be leading us to these really ambitious biodiversity goals, goals that have never been set forth by another state in the country, and [the Massachusetts Department of] Fish and Game and MassWildlife should then be a beacon for conservation," she told WAMC. "They should be making decisions that are guided by transparent science. But in the case of routine, nonnative fish stocking, that's clearly not the case.”
BEAT has a webinar on their new campaign set for Tuesday, March 3.
