Fish stocking ban looms at Wash. national park

Every summer, Sandy McKean and volunteers lug plastic jugs full of baby trout into the rugged wilderness of North Cascades National Park and plant them in alpine lakes for anglers to catch.

This year, reversing a practice that's been around longer than the park itself, park officials say they'll no longer allow fish stocking in those mountain lakes - and will kill remaining fish - unless Congress tells them otherwise.

It's the latest twist in a long, often contentious debate over what it means to be "natural" when it comes to national parks and wilderness.

Park officials say stocking fish in lakes that never had them in the first place runs counter to the park's mission to maintain and preserve ecosystems in their natural state.

"We feel fish stocking is inappropriate without legislative authority," said Roy Zipp, the park's environmental protection specialist. "It was envisioned as wilderness from its inception."

Anglers like McKean and the volunteer group Trail Blazers say there's a historical case for it and the park doesn't need Congressional approval. They also question how trout in a lake is any less compatible with wilderness than a man-made trail.

North Cascades, a vast wilderness area about the size of Rhode Island with jagged high peaks and more than 300 glaciers, is the only U.S. national park where stocking nonnative fish still occurs for recreation purposes, Park Superintendent Chip Jenkins said.

Yellowstone, Mount Rainier, and Sequoia and Kings Canyon parks no longer do it, Zipp said.

Park officials have tried for decades - without much success - to phase it out and bring the North Cascades in line with national park policy.

After a long review, including a 12-year scientific study, the National Park Service decided in January to end fish stocking if it doesn't get Congressional approval by July 1. It would remove fish from some lakes, using gill nets or a pesticide that has been used in other parks.

If Congress allows it, the park will continue to stock up to 42 mountain lakes with species of rainbow, cutthroat and other trout that can't reproduce. The lakes are all in designated wilderness areas within the park complex.

It's unclear whether Congressional approval could come this summer.

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., said he plans to reintroduce a bill giving the park that authority. Hastings' 2008 bill, which five Washington representatives co-sponsored, passed the House last summer but didn't get a Senate hearing.

Congress didn't directly mention fish stocking when it created the North Cascades National Park complex in 1968, leaving plenty open to interpretation.

McKean said the park's director promised during a Congressional hearing at the time that fish stocking would continue.

"There's a historic interest in providing angler recreation in high mountain areas. It's as valid a recreational activity as hiking," said Bob Everitt, regional director for the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, which relies on volunteers like McKean to stock alpine lakes.

The state has had a fish stocking program in the North Cascades for over 40 years, and stocking took place even in the late 1800s, Everitt said.

"The fact that it's been going on for a long time is not a reason for it to continue," said David Fluharty, a board member with the North Cascades Conservation Council. "We'd like to see restoration of those lakes through fish removal. ... We're talking about lakes that never had fish."

The park estimates about 1,000 people fish these alpine lakes each year, but McKean believes those numbers are low.

While national parks had fish stocking programs in the past, North Cascades was created at a time when people's perception of parks was shifting toward conservation, Jenkins said.

"This tension still exists today between preserving ecosystems and the public's desire for recreational activities in those places," Jenkins said.

Disagreements between the park and state over fish management have been legendary over the years.

Tempers flared in the late 1980s, when the head of the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife threatened to "bomb" 12 park lakes with trout by helicopter if stocking didn't continue, while a park official threatened to kill any planted fish, according an account by park historian David Louter.

The Department of Interior intervened. What followed was an agreement in 1988 that stocking would continue but the park would research how it affected other plants and wildlife.

Researchers found that nonnative fish that reproduce can harm native aquatic organisms such as salamanders, insects and zooplankton.

But the study also found that in lakes where fish are stocked in low numbers and cannot reproduce, there weren't detectable ecological effects to native aquatic life.

Both Fluharty and McKean think the park shouldn't have punted the decision to Congress.

Come July, when snow typically begins to melt in the Cascades, McKean isn't sure whether he'll hike as many as 12 hours into alpine lakes with plastic containers of trout.

"We'll have the fish in hand," said Everitt, whose agency works with McKean's group to stock lakes. "We'll have to see as we approach the summer."

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On the Net:

North Cascades National Park: http://www.nps.gov/noca/

Trail Blazers: http://www.watrailblazers.org

North Cascades Conservation Council: http://www.northcascades.org/