Wild Trout IV was held September 18-19,1989. Over the past 15 years, the Proceedings have grown from 102 pages to 233 pages as have the contents and scope of the presentations. The Environmental Protection Agency and the American Fisheries Society were added as cosponsors. Frank Richardson and Gardner Grant cochaired the symposium.
One of the major keynotes was by Nathaniel P. Reed who addressed the progress we made in the fifteen years that intervened since WT-I. He talked about our inability to explain ecosystem management to the public as was the case with the Yellowstone fires last year. He pointed out how Jack Anderson's restoration of the cutthroat trout with advice from Starker Leopold and Durward Allen made it possible to restore the Grizzly populations. Mr. Reed, as were many of us, said he was thrilled to see Luna Leopold with us this year and that we. as the caring vanguard, had fulfilled the constant need to better manage man's rapacious appetites in exceptional ways so that we can continue to save planet earth and the wild trout that seek to share it with us.
NWF's Benjamin Dysart joined us again as a Keynoter and although he approved of our scientific approaches to watershed, fishery and habitat restoration, he pointed out that something more was needed to really be effective. What is needed is to come up with h projects that have scenarios where everyone wins. Win-Win situations come about by working with right-minded developers, with the agencies, and with the anglers. The real challenge is to have desirable development that is done in a way that does not preclude public environmental quality values. When this takes place everyone can win.
Bob Behnke was the WT-IV Symposium Summarizer. He looked at our progress including his observation that state and federal hatchery salmonid production had grown from a total of 169.4 million in 1958 of which 50.2 million were catchable trout, to 256.5 million salmonids in 1983 of which 78 million were catchable trout. The cost of each trout varied from $1.06 to $3.62 per fishing license sold creating an economic imbalance. Bob told us we could provide more angler days at lower cost by creating more wild trout opportunities and that more investigation is needed in this area. The 1989 A. Starker Leopold Award recipients were Frank Richardson and Otto H. Teller.
The organization of Wild Trout Symposiums normally include Sunday Registration and a speakers and committee meeting and reception. Monday morning starts with a plenary session usually with top-level agency speakers like the Secretary of the Interior followed by two and a half days of sessions on all aspects of wild trout. There is an awards luncheon and a banquet. WT-IV has panels including: the overall resource, fishery restoration, wildfire, drought and wild trout, fishery management, and fish economics, each with five to seven individual twenty minute presentations. The Symposium also includes poster papers and several exhibits. Well known author Richard Telleur reported on 25 years of no-kill regulations on New York's Beaverkill and Willowemoc rivers and an economic boom in Roscoe, New York that resulted from these special regulations. Similar results took place in Canada's five Atlantic seaboard provinces with no-kill Atlantic salmon regulations.
Wild Trout IV Photo Album
