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Article: Call of the wild for Colorado's rivers. (fish stocking)
- Article from:
- Earth Island Journal
- Article date:
- March 22, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1998 Earth Island Institute. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Each year prior to 1996, more than 15 million non-native rainbow, brook and brown trout, and non-native sub-species of cutthroat trout, were stocked in Colorado's 24,000 miles of streams. Stocking the state's streams with hatchery-raised fish -- while inconsistent with the Colorado Division of Wildlife's (DOW) policy of "maintaining habitat productivity for human benefit" -- has remained a long-running exception to the agency's resource management guidelines.
Stocking is recognized as a dangerous practice because it can give the false impression that ecological limits are not important. However, given the estimated million anglers with an economic impact of ...