From: Ben Pittenger (benpittenger@earthlink.net)
Date: Wed Jun 19 2002 - 08:28:26 PDT
Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 08:28:26 -0700 From: Ben Pittenger<benpittenger@earthlink.net> Subject: Flying fish Message-ID: <Springmail.0994.1024500506.0.26161800@webmail.pas.earthlink.net>
Geoff,
Thanks for bringing this up! It spurred me into doing some research that I've been meaning to complete for some time. I also have wondered at the apparent flying prowess of the fish in the small lakes of the high Sierra. It ends up that flight and animal transport has played a part, as alluded to by Paul, but by a somewhat different methodology.
Those who have been studying this issue directly (I am not one of them, except by observation of the presence of the fishes. The various articles I've cited below provide the information I've included here.) have noted that the lakes of the high Sierra were essentially fishless until the 1800's. First settlers (for food), then recreationalists (for 'sport') began stocking the streams that were above waterfalls and in otherwise fishless areas. So in the upper reaches of the watersheds, your observed fish were likely human-introduced phenomena. At first this stocking was completed by hand, to provide a food source for settlers and travelers (the first article below notes one incident with a coffee pot and a 4-mile hike.). Eventually, stocking became the bailiwick of the California Fish and Game Commission and the National Parks Service. Under the auspices of these agencies, stocking eventually was (is) accomplished by aerial drops of fingerlings. (Big eagles, I guess you could say; and the effect from the
fingerlings' perspective is probably not much different than if they were transported by tornados or other storm transport.)
Notably, this stocking has not been benign. Trout (the favored 'sport' stock) are predatory, and this has disrupted the previous balance of native fauna, including vertebrates and invertebrates. Apparently the largest amount of study has focussed on the impact of this activity on frog populations. Apparently the tadpoles of yellow-legged frogs (a native species) are rarely found in lakes stocked with trout. Thus there has been a noted decline, even where the native frogs were plentiful back near the turn of the (last) century. (see #1, below, pp. 9-10) I did not, in my brief research, find that the broader impact of the loss of these frogs (and the loss of invertebrate prey) on the high Sierra ecosystems has been very well studied.
1. http://www.dfg.ca.gov/fishing/mt_st_guide.pdf
(see pp. 8 & 9 for a quick summary of the history of fish stocking in The Sierra)
2. http://leopold.wilderness.net/confwork/fsw_abstract/knapp.htm
3. http://www.wilderness.net/pubs/matthews.pdf
4. http://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/200007/lol1.asp
5. http://ceres.ca.gov/snep/pubs/web/v1/ch08/v1_ch08_03.html
Again, thanks for raising this Geoff.
Ben
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