Laws concerning the stocking and movement of fish can best be thought of in terms of risk management. Imagine a risk management company evaluating the following things.

The first risk is of fish escaping from our lakes to public waters. This risk must be evaluated for the length of time we have fish in our lakes. We have had threads about how fish get into our lakes. In all of these ways, fish can get out of our lakes. The risk of fish escaping during 5,10, 20, 50 and 100 year floods would be evaluated. The chances of someone moving fish from our lake to others would be weighed. They would look at birds, turtles, tornados, etc. carrying eggs or fish out of our lakes. I think that most people would consider the chance of fish escaping to be very high over the course of the life of our lakes. If we had to buy a bond to cover this risk, I doubt that many of us could afford it.

The next risk is that if a species should escape from our lakes, what are the chances of it doing damage? Meadowlark used the Little Red River in Arkansas as an example of brown, rainbow and cutthroat trout living and thriving with LMB and SMB. According to the “Fishes of Arkansas”, both blue and flathead catfish live there also. Meadowlark uses this as an example to advance the theory that because these species are compatible and desirable in this situation, they are in every other situation. We can test this theory quite easily by placing these species in other situations and see if we think they would be compatible and desirable. If we put all of these species into our own lakes, I think that few of us would consider them to be either compatible or desirable. In passing laws, I think that few people would consider this theory plausible.

There are a number of factors involved in evaluating the risk of potential damage caused by the escape of a species. The first factor is whether the species is already established in the watershed or not. Channel catfish entering a watershed where catfish are common would have a very low risk of causing damage. If a species is not established in a watershed, the best way to evaluate it is to see was has happened in other watersheds. Flathead catfish put into a watershed they haven’t been in before have been very destructive. Walleyes have severely degraded some trout fisheries. Black, bighead and silver carp degrade almost every body of water they are found in. We’ve had many examples of the damage that over stocking of grass carp can cause. This is exactly what happens with a free breeding population of grass carp. It is likely that snakeheads were deliberately introduced by people from Asia that remember them as a compatible and very desirable species. This is no different than what Americans have done with LMB in so many cases.

The third risk is in transporting species. There are a number of very undesirable species that are commonly transported by recreational boating including fishermen. Zebra mussels and Eurasian water milfoil are good examples of this. The movement of fish has spread diseases like whirling disease and LMB virus. Depending on the region, there are many other diseases, plants and animals that pose a danger to our ecosystems and fishing. While the chances of any one instance causing a problem are slim, collectively these actions almost certainly do cause damage.

In general, the person that caused problems or damage never has to pay for it themselves. They are seldom caught and even if they are, the fines are miniscule compared to the damage. If we had to buy a bond or have our property taken to pay to correct the problems caused, most of us would be much more conservative in our actions. It is the taxpayers or a degraded ecosystem that pays the price. That’s why taxpayers and sportsmen get these laws passed.

Norm Kopecky