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tortricid's comments:
on Fishery or Laboratory?
This discussion about fishing in Spirit Lake needs to be placed in a larger context. The National Volcanic Monument is under assault from all sides. Substantial development of vacation homes has occurred on the south side and massive amounts more have been proposed. A square mile on the NW boundary was recently sold by Weyerhaeuser for development. The Citizens Advisory Committee, which is dominated by people whose job it is to ensure economic development and security of nearby communities, has recommended new roads, trails, campgrounds, visitor facilities, and other forms of use and exploitation within or at the margins of the monument. The Monument is not large enough to accomodate all of the proposed activity without severe degradation of its natural resources. From the outset, the monument was not large enough to protect natural recovery processes, but at least it was buffered by relatively low intensity use of forestlands at the edges of the monument, this buffer is shrinking. If greater recreational use is to occur, the area set aside for recreational use and protected from more intensive harvest and other uses needs to expand by enlarging the Monument. It seems to me that environmentalists, conservationists, and recreational users of all stripes, and even those seeking greater economic return from the monument, could find some common ground on this.
posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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on Fishery or Laboratory?
The fact that its natural outlet was not allowed to re-form, and a man-made one was created instead, does not invalidate studying this lake's recovery from catastrophic disturbance or applying those lessons elsewhere. If the tunnel wasn't there, a channel would have re-formed through the debris avalanche, and its effect on the lake may not have been much different than water exiting the tunnel. Though this is out of my field, if they outlet had re-formed naturally a lake with similar geomorphic boundaries and hydrologic properties was a plausible outcome.
"...WDFW will ensure ... absolute protection"!? The sponsor of this bill (Orcutt), as well as some fisherman contributing to this discussion advocate managing the trout population to maintain large size; they advocate adding new trails and new, multiple access points; Mr. Cox suggests that plenty of fisherman will illegally fish the lake even now, so what else can we expect them to do? My sources tell me that it was fisherman who introduced these trout in the first place. How long will it be before bait fish are introduced? And this is the attitude even before legal fishing is allowed? Will the next request be to remove the logs from lake so float fishing will actually be safe?
posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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on Fishery or Laboratory?
Is the lake "pristine" - No, but it is arguably the least human-altered lake of its size in this region, save Crater Lake.
1) I believe the boat uses an engine that does not mix oil and gas and therefore doesn't spew oil into the water. It also is on the water only a handful of days each summer.
2) Although I'm sure you're right about the aircraft, in my 20 summers working on the south side of the lake I've never seen one land.
3) the diesel fuel, pumps, equipment have been gone more than 20 years, and there is no residual evidence of them in the lake or even on land.
4) I think it is reprehensible that someone planted these fish. Nevertheless, the fish ARE native to the area (based on genetic studies), though of course they did not colonize naturally. However, if the lake had been allowed to form an accessible outlet, these fish are very similar to what would have colonized. Therefore, this is still a fairly natural situation.
5) People are not actually allowed to walk all the way to the lake. The trail ends a little bit away from the lake and no off trail travel is allowed. "Once there why are they not allowed to fish". This is like asking "once you're allowed to walk up and look at the Mona Lisa, why can't you touch it too?".
6) Hunters ARE NOT given free access to the class I research area where the anglers want access. Last year, for the first time, 10 hunting permits were issued for this area, only to master hunters. The hunting occurred in November, when most plants and animals are dormant. Many of the scientists, including myself, are very opposed to allowing this hunt, but those who favored it argued that hunting and bough-harvesting at the monument boundar push so many elk onto the Pumice Plain it was necessary to allow some hunting to push them back out.
John Bishop
posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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on Fishery or Laboratory?
Neither Doug Larson, nor I, nor any of the other scientists writing the book (Mount St. Helens ecological research: Ecological recovery of Mount St. Helens after the 1980 eruption), save possibly the editors, earned a dime from it. We did not write it to make money, we wrote it to share our findings with the public and other scientists.
However, I think WDFW is advocating the fishery partly for the money the will earn from the lottery. They estimate about $75,000/yr in income.
John Bishop
posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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on Fishery or Laboratory?
Here's a different way to look at it:
1) Researchers have competed for and obtained millions of dollars (not thousands!) of federal research dollars that otherwise would not have come to Washington/Portland area. My own research group at WSU has averaged about $80,000/yr from NSF and private foundations for the last decade, and I'm one many biology researchers. Most of that money is spent hiring and training young scientists. We also host visiting scientists from around the world every year, who bring additional $ to the economy.
2) Tourists are attracted by science: Hundreds of thousands of tourists flock ot Mount St. Helens every year. MANY of these tourists want more than to just look at the crater, they want an educational experience, they want to learn about what scientists have discovered at the Mountain. This results in longer stays by tourists, who spend more money on the economy.
3) Many of the scientists working at Mount St. Helens have taken the lessons learned at Mount St. Helens and applied them to important problems elsewhere. To give just two examples, the concept of variable retention forestry, which is now widely practiced, was introduced by Jerry Franklin (University of Washington) based on his work at Mount St. Helens. Roger del Moral (University of Washington) recently published the book "Environmental Disasters, Natural Recovery, and Human Responses", which applies the lessons from MSH to help guide responses to natural disasters.
posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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on Fishery or Laboratory?
Will fishing impact biological communities or research in the Spirit Lake basin?
Mr. Hall seems to advocate that WDFW should manage the fishery so as to maintain large fish and prevent the predicted (and already observed) decrease in size over time. This would involve harvesting the fish. Certainly Rep. Ed Orcutt, the sponsor of the house bill 1838, has gone on the record stating that he wants to see management for this purpose. The bill includes no specifics (or limits) about how WDFW would have to manage the fishery, whether it would be catch and release, barbless, how many would have access, etc. At the outset, the numbers Mr. Hall's provided add up to several hundred person days per year. This is more than enough to have an impact on the lake. Nearby lakes with fewer anglers already display these impacts. Mr. Orcutt is on record saying that he wants to see additional trails to the lake, through the class I research area. These trails, and additional activity at the lake shore, would impact the development of new terrestrial communities and research on them. There is NO QUESTION the proposed activities will change the dynamics of this area. The proponents of fishing admit this in one sentence, while seeking to deny it in the next!
To learn more about science and educational activities at Mount St. Helens:
a) See www.mshinstitute.org
b) I'll be giving a talk this coming Thursday at 7pm: "The Pumice Plain Turns Thirty", at the Clark County Historical Museum, Vancouver, WA
John Bishop
posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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on Fishery or Laboratory?
I'm a terrestrial biologist at Washington State University who has worked at Mount St. Helens for nearly 20 years. I would like to comment on what Dr. Larson and Mr. Hall have said:
1) What is being studied? USFS and university researchers (but NOT WDFW staff) are studying the detailed dynamics of fish, zooplankton, phytoplankton, water chemistry and physical properties, and other aspects of the lake, as well as all around the lake on land, and how the two influence each other. These dynamics have never been studied before in a lake like this one.
2) This is a unique opportunity to study these dynamics, and while life is teeming in the lake, it is nowhere near the equilibrium that an undisturbed lake would eventually reach. This is illustrated by the Hall's comments - out of hundreds of fish, none were less than 18". In fact, the real researchers also never see fish smaller than that. No young fish can be found! This is an extremely unusual situation that will certainly change over time, exactly the kind of dynamics we wouldn't learn if the lake is fished.
3) Mr. Hall says the lake is not natural because it empties through a tunnel. He is wrong. If left to its own, it would have created its own outlet. So it would have had an outlet either way. The main difference is that fish might have been able to return up a natural outlet, though not even that is guaranteed. There are some other effects too, but for the most part man-made instead of natural outlet does not create different dynamics in the biological communities.
John Bishop
posted 4 years, 1 month ago
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