At the March 20 MA Fish & Wildlife Board meeting, a presentation was made by Adam Kautza, MassWildlife Coldwater Fisheries Resource Project Leader about its Teaching with Trout Program.

 

Here is some background information on MassWildlife’s Teaching with Trout program and brook trout:

• The Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife) is responsible for the conservation—including restoration, protection, and management—of freshwater fish and wildlife resources in Massachusetts for the benefit of and enjoyment by the public. Part of the agency’s mission is education. MassWildlife’s Teaching with Trout Program can be utilized across all grade levels as a basis to develop an appreciation for the aquatic environment through raising trout in the classroom.
• This is a popular educational program that enables students to raise brook trout from eggs during the winter and then release them into approved lakes and streams in the spring.
• The program strives to connect students to their local environment; teach about water quality and habitat health; and, introduce conservation concepts related to local aquatic resources and population biology. Brook trout eggs are provided with a permit from MassWildlife’s fish hatcheries.
• A tank is kept in the classroom for several months, and over that time students are engaged in a curriculum about conservation. As part of the program, teachers can also arrange hatchery tours with MassWildlife.
• Teachers can adapt the program to fit their curriculum needs and students’ levels. Teaching with Trout has applications for science, math, language, arts, and social studies. The program is designed to teach Massachusetts students about conservation concepts related to their local aquatic resources. Using resources available online or those a teacher may develop, students in primary grades can be introduced to topics like life cycle, anatomy, and food webs. Students in higher grades can be introduced to concepts including ecology, population biology, water quality, and conservation.
• There are currently 64 schools across the Commonwealth participating in the program, engaging over 5,100 students in elementary, middle, and high schools. Participating schools in the Berkshires include: Pittsfield High School and Taconic High School in Pittsfield; Wahconah Regional High School in Dalton; and Mount Everett Regional School in Sheffield.
• The fish released by students at the end of the Teaching with Trout Program, and the hundreds of thousands of trout stocked by MassWildlife each spring and fall, are not meant to restore or repopulate waterbodies. Aquaculture and stocking activities are meant to ensure abundant fishing opportunities in waters open to the public. In contrast to stocked trout fisheries, wild brook trout populations are protected and restored through habitat restoration projects (e.g. dam removal), land protection, harvest regulations, along with outreach and education efforts.

 

Teachers will have to buy, or borrow, an aquarium set up. This costs roughly $1,300. Once a system is bought, maintaining it costs very little. If you are interested in Teaching with Trout, but the cost is prohibitive, please contact MassWildlife. An aquarium system includes:

• 55-gallon tank
• Water chiller
• Water filter
• Water pump
• Air pump
• Water chemistry test kits
• Reagents

MassWildlife staff are available to help with aquarium questions and troubleshooting. Hatchery field trips may also be arranged.

This program is quite similar to a program that dates back to earlier days of the ASERP (Atlantic Salmon Egg Rearing Program) when Becket grammar students raised Atlantic Salmon fry and released them into nearby Yokum Brook. I shall never forget covering the fish release days for this column.  Students actually gave some of the salmon fry names.   When the day came for their liberation, they released them into the brook a few at a time in paper cups. They held a going away party for them, sang songs and wished the salmon a safe journey.  Those fish, after spending a couple of years in the brook, become salmon smolt which then embarked on a journey of thousands of miles into the Atlantic Ocean.  In 4 or 5 years they would attempt to come back to their home waters to spawn.

 

When state and federal funding for the ASERP program ran out, schools then switched to raising brook trout.  Taconic Trout Unlimited members assisted the schools and teachers wherever they could, acquiring tanks, chillers, etc.  That new program was called the Trout in the Classroom program.  Readers may remember in the past when I covered the liberations of the classroom raised brook trout into our local waters such as the Yokum Brook in Becket, Westfield Brook in Windsor and others.  TU members such as Paul Knauth, Karen Karlberg, Dave Oclair, Ron Wojcek and others helped out.

 

Its so nice to see MassWildlife still advocating for this program in our schools.  Lets hope many local schools participate in it.

 

Following that presentation, Kautza gave a second presentation about Brook Trout, pointing out the following:

 

• Brook trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) are technically not even trout. They are charr, more closely related to lake trout (Salvelinus namaycush) and artic char (Salvelinus alpinus) than they are to other species of trout like the introduced brown trout (Salmo trutta) and rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss).

 

• Brook trout are the only remaining native salmonid (Family Salmonidae) in Massachusetts. Brook trout are true coldwater fish and are unable to tolerate water temperatures much over 20^o C (68^o F) for extended periods. They thrive in waters between 11–16^o C (52–61^o F). They do best when in streams with moderate pH and high alkalinity. Great brook trout habitat consists of areas with lots of pools and cover, relatively stable stream flows, and a substrate that is free of silt.

 

• Brook trout reproduce in the fall, usually from mid-October until late November. Eggs hatch in the early spring. In the southern portion of their range (which includes Massachusetts), most brook trout live up to three or four years and achieve a maximum length of 200–250 mm (about 8–10 inches).

 

• There are exceptions where brook trout have access to more food and/or optimum habitat. For example, in the Swift River in central Massachusetts, the water temperature and stream flows stay in the optimal range, and brook trout grow much larger.

 

•  Sea-run brook trout also have the tendency to reach greater size than inland populations because of their ability to access the rich food resources in saltwater. Sea-run brook trout in Massachusetts tend to migrate from freshwater streams to inshore saltwater habitats in late fall following reproduction and then move back into streams in the spring. Sea-run brook trout streams in Massachusetts are concentrated along the shoreline of Buzzards Bay, on Cape Cod and Martha’s Vineyard, and scattered areas along Massachusetts’ South Shore.

 

• Wild, naturally reproducing brook trout are found in all but two of the major watersheds in the Massachusetts. While their current extent is reduced from the larger historic range, they still occupy over 1,100 streams across the state. Brook trout have disappeared from many urban and suburban streams due to the negative impacts on habitat from human development including dams, loss of riparian habitat, altered flow regimes, and increased sedimentation. Climate change also poses a major threat to them. When faced with poor habitat conditions, they often recede into smaller, colder, high-gradient headwater streams.

 

Local trout stockings

 

The following local waters were scheduled to be stocked last week by MassWildlife:  Westfield River Middle Branch in Chester, Huntington, Middlefield and Worthington; Housatonic River East Branch in Dalton and Hinsdale, Housatonic River Southwest Branch in Pittsfield, Housatonic River Catch & Release in Lee and Stockbridge, Hoosic River South Branch in Cheshire and Adams, Green River (north) in New Ashfield and Williamstown, Lake Garfield, Goose Pond, Greenwater Pond, Laurel Lake, Mansfield Pond in Great Barrington, North Pond in Florida, Big Pond in Otis, Otis Reservoir, Stockbridge Bowl and York Lake in New Marlborough.

 

Conte Memorial Dinner reminder

 

Don’t forget, the Berkshire County League of Sportsmen’s Silvio O. Conte Memorial Banquet will take place at the Cheshire Rod & Gun Club, 310 Curran Road, Cheshire, on Saturday evening, April 13. Doors open at 4:30 pm, ticket price is $40 pp.   A head count is due tomorrow.

This year’s award winners are:   Sportsman of the Year Award– Leanda Fontaine of Bernardston, MA, Lifetime Achievement Award – Ted Pointek of Housatonic, John Zuber Award – Rick French of Phillipston, MA, Sportsmen’s Appreciation Award – James Loughman of Adams, and Outstanding Achievement Award – the late Richard ‘Rick’ Theilig of Lee.