The California Department of Fish
and Game must review whether its
annual practice of adding millions
of hatchery-raised trout to the
state's rivers and lakes has
contributed to declines in native
fish and frogs, a judge ruled
Thursday.Sacramento County
Superior Court Judge Patrick
Marlette said the state's trout
stocking program fails to meet
environmental laws designed to
protect threatened and endangered
species, although he declined to
temporarily shut it down.
"The fish stocking program has
been in existence for over a
century and, it appears, already
has caused significant
environmental impacts," Marlette
wrote in a five-page opinion.
"Where impacts are significant but
not final or irreversible,
stopping the program now will not
change that."
Marlette's ruling requires the
department to complete an
environmental impact report, which
will evaluate how the addition of
trout affects native species.
Department spokesman Steve
Martarano said work on the report
is already under way.
The decision was a partial
victory for environmental groups
who have long complained that
trout stocking has led to a
population drop in sensitive
species, including the mountain
yellow-legged frog, Cascades frog,
California golden trout, McCloud
River redband trout and Santa Ana
sucker.
Noah Greenwald, a conservation
biologist with the Center for
Biological Diversity, said an
environmental review could reduce
how many trout are placed in the
state's rivers and lakes each
year.
"Trout is a predator and it has
a cascading effect on everything
trout eat," said Greenwald, whose
organization along with the
Pacific Rivers Council sued the
state last October.
The department had argued fish
stocking was exempt from
environmental review because the
program, which the department took
over in 1945, was in place long
before environmental laws
protecting sensitive species were
enacted in 1970.
Nevertheless, the department
last year began an environmental
review of the program, which
produced 3.2 million pounds of
trout in hatcheries around the
state in 2006.
The state plans to stock the
state's rivers and lakes with 4.5
million pounds of trout this year,
Martarano said. ____
On the Net:
Department of Fish and Game:
Pacific Rivers Council,
Center for Biological
Diversity,
www.dfg.ca.gov
www.pacrivers.org
www.biologicaldiversity.org
