OUTDOORS JOURNAL: Dave Sherwood

Kennebec fish study will help rivers help themselves

Copyright © 2005 Blethen Maine Newspapers Inc.

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The Kennebec River is a good neighbor.

She provides us with unlimited free recreation, food when we're willing to work for it, a mode of transportation and a timeless connection between towns, and generations.

In turn, we've used her as a toilet bowl for chemical waste, logging debris and just about everything else.

Like any good neighbor, though, she's prone to forgive the occasional injustice or lack of manners. A recent investigation by an environmental consulting firm, Kleinschmidt Associates in Pittsfield, determined that the Kennebec has rebounded over the past six years since the removal of Edwards Dam.

Their study, begun in 2002, is ongoing. It looks at seven Maine rivers: the Kennebec, the St. Croix, the Penobscot, the Allagash, St. John, Aroostook, and Androscoggin.

Unlike other scientific studies, this one is unique and easy for the layman (me) to grasp. Instead of looking at the chemical make-up of the water, aquatic insect life cyces or molecular hydrology, this study looks at fish.

"People 'get' fish," said Brandon Kulik, the Winslow resident and scientist who coordinates the study for Kleinschmidt. That summed it up nicely for me.

The research method is simple: using a boat outfitted with a custom-made electro-shocking device, biologists shock "fishy" sections of rivers, like eddies behind rocks, undercut banks and deep runs of eight feet or more. The temporarily paralyzed fish float to the surface, are netted, counted, measured and released alive.

In essence, the study is a fisherman's dream: it tells you how many fish are in the river, where they live, and how big they are.

It also tells us about the river's ecological health, said Kulik.

"Fish are at the top of the food chain. If something below them -- say macroinvertebrates {bugs}, smaller baitfish {dace, shiners) or vegetation suffers, it will show up in the bigger fish," he said.

The study is part of a new, national trend that's gaining acceptance, slowly. It's called "ecosystem" management.

Instead of looking at a river like a resource that we need to constantly renew, we instead insist that it should renew itself.

Each river in the study, said Kulik, is assigned an ecological report card -- showing if, and how, all the different fish "niches," are filled. A healthy river has a full complement of fish species -- from apex predators like the striped bass or brook trout, down to the smallest minnows.

On such a scale, said Kulik, the Allagash and Aroostook rivers in northern Maine, would score high marks for their intact ecosystems, lack of exotic species and full range of native, self-sustaining fish, from large to small.

"State agencies have traditionally managed rivers and their fish like a crop, a natural resource that exists for the harvest of man," said Kulik. That's meant stocking fish when populations decline, rather than looking for the root cause.

Kulik hopes this study will begin to shift the emphasis away from such "quick fixes."

"It's a relatively new idea. In other states, there are entire hatchery divisions devoted to quick fixes like creating and stocking 'frankenfish', like saugeyes, tiger muskies and wipers. They grow like weeds and fishermen love them. But how sustainable is that," he said.

"The biggest selling point of the ecosystem approach is that it's ultimately cheaper. If the ecoysystem is re-established, it'll sustain a reasonable amount of harvest. You could potentially do away with much of the stocking and tinkering," he said.

For a state like Maine, such an approach could someday mean less stocking of fish like splake, or brook trout, and more reliance on natural reproduction in certain waters.

This survey, and the resulting "report cards," said Kulik, should give us the tools needed to help rivers help themselves.

"The Allagash and Aroostook are native ecosystems that are still intact. It's good for people to know. These are places worthy of serious protection," he said.

Closer to home, our neighbor, the Kennebec, takes on an equally important roll, thanks to its social, recreational and economic value.

Kleinschmidt's study has shown the lower Kennebec to be the most biologically-rich in Maine, with more "biomass" per mile than any other river, including the Penobscot and Androscoggin.

But the effects of Edwards Dam and past pollution still linger. Kulik likens the newly-freed lower Kennebec to a recent clearcut.

"A lot of species are filling in and competing to see what gets established. In another 20 years, it could all be very different," he said.

Understanding and documenting these changes is an important first step.

"It's a moving target," said Kulik.

Of course, it would be easier to keep dumping fish in our rivers, create a new species or two -- and avoid the problem all together.

But is that any way to treat your neighbor?

Dave Sherwood -- 621-5648

dsherwood@centralmaine.com