A “Magical” Fish: The Effort Continues to Protect Native Brook Trout

Fresh water fishing season has begun in Rhode Island, but as anglers crowd the banks of streams and ponds to reel in stocked hatchery trout, in quieter waters, the native Eastern Brook Trout persist.

The Eastern Brook Trout (Salvelinus fontinalis) grows to only about eight inches in Rhode Island because of limited habitat, but for many, it is still an iconic fish. Rhode Island’s wild trout are surviving, despite pressure from habitat alteration, competition from the larger, hatchery fish and warming water.

Todd Corayer, angler, outdoors writer and member of the Rhode Island Chapter Board of Trout Unlimited, said the brook trout, or “brookie,” as it is often called, is Rhode Island’s only remaining native, freshwater species.

“They’re captivating, because they’re a wild fish that exists among us, and we humans have done everything in our power to injure their populations and degrade their home waters,” he said. “They’re gorgeous. They’re absolutely beautiful fish, and I’ll also say this: The big circle of striper fishermen, tuna fishermen, guys that like to catch big fish, … there are few things as humbling as a person catching a brook trout that fits in the palm of their hand.”

Jim Turek, the Richmond Conservation Commission Chairman and a restoration ecologist, described native brook trout as indicators of a healthy ecosystem.

“They’re the canary in the coal mine,” he said. “We’re getting more and more challenge with climate change, but that [river] system, it is a groundwater – controlled site, so it’s got cold water base flows to some extent.”

Brook trout may be iconic, but they are also elusive. DEM fisheries biologist Corey Pelletier has been surveying native brook trout for several years, but he still hasn’t been able to determine how many there are, because the fish are so mobile.

“It’s really hard to gather a sense of if we’re declining in population size, because there’s such annual fluctuation,” he said. “When you survey them, you go to one spot, say, three years in a row and looking at different size classes of fish, so you’re looking at what you have for juveniles that year and what you have for adult size classes. And the numbers just vary from year to year so much in that one single location.”

Where the Brook Trout Live

Charlestown resident Brian O’Connor is passionate about brook trout and is one of the founding members of the advocacy group, Protect Rhode Island Brook Trout.

On a sunny day in late April, he led a tour of rivers and streams, pointing out the places where native trout habitat is compromised.

One of the biggest threats to native trout is warming water.

Groundwater is cold and oxygen-rich when it enters streams, but the hundreds of dams throughout the watershed, more than 200 at last count, create impoundments – standing water that warms before it flows downstream.

“The state is well aware of thermal pollution and the problems that these impoundments in the headwaters are causing,” O’Connor said. “The temperature of the water in the summer is increasing, and the duration of time that the hot water is in the streams is also increasing.”

Native trout look for places, known as “thermal refuges,” where the water is cooler and they will swim for miles to reach them.

“This is now the determining factor of population size,” O’Connor said. “How many fish can find thermal refuge throughout the summer.”

Pelletier recently completed a research study that tracked the survival of brook trout that moved from water that had become too warm, 74 degrees Fahrenheit or warmer, to thermal refuges.

“We found that brook trout had to move, sometimes significant distances, to find colder water to support them through those stressful periods of the summer,” he said.

Pelletier found no trout present in water that was 75 degrees or warmer.

Breakheart Pond and the Upper Wood River

O’Connor pointed out two areas of particular concern: Breakheart Pond and the Upper Wood River.

Created by the state as a place to dispose of fallen trees after the 1938 hurricane, Breakheart Pond is large – about 44 acres. It is also heavily stocked with hatchery fish.

“They put this fish ladder in, we don’t know whether they thought brook trout could go up and down that thing or not, but it’s been failed for eons of time, and the state fills this pond with hatchery fish and this entire stream is just lousy with hatchery fish, so the brook trout population that existed above and below have been disconnected from one another since 1939, close to 100 years,” O’Connor said.

At the Upper Wood River, O’Connor worries that heavy foot traffic on the banks has eroded the soil, allowing sediment to cover the gravel river bed that native trout require.

This section of river, he said, is critical native trout habitat.

“The main stem of the Upper Wood River has the coldest water and the largest volume of that cold water known to exist anywhere,” he said. “So, it was always thought, oh, the tributaries is where the brook trout hide out and the hatchery fish don’t go up there. That’s their safe refuge. Well, that’s no longer the case. The safe refuge is now the most fished and heavily-stocked section of river in the State of Rhode Island.”

The Stocking Debate

Meeting the demand for stocked trout while managing wild brook trout is challenging, and it has been equally challenging for conservation and fishing organizations and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to reach a consensus on what should be done.

In July 2021, conservationists, including Turek and O’Connor, rejoiced when DEM announced that it was no longer stocking trout in the Beaver River. The river was also designated catch and release only.

“We were able to turn the Beaver River into a non-stocking river, and you know what?” Turek said. “The good thing about that whole thing is, I see hardly anybody. On Opening Day, I don’t think there was anybody down the Beaver River. Why? Those stocked fish are 12 to 15-inch fish. They want to catch these big fish.”

Pelletier said one of the benefits of stocking hatchery fish is that their large size makes them more desirable to most anglers than wild fish.

“I think that’s a point that goes unnoticed and is important, because people go and are happy catching these fish and they can take them home to eat them and it’s all good and well,” he said.

The Falls River, in the Arcadia Management Area, is the only other river in the state, so far, to be designated catch and release.

Recently, however, conservationists have set their sights on the Upper Wood River, and they are asking DEM to stop stocking the river to reduce the pressure on native trout. Hatchery trout that aren’t caught by anglers don’t live very long, because they are not adapted to surviving in the wild. But while they are in the water with native brook trout, they crowd the much smaller wild fish and even eat the juveniles, known as “young of the year.”

Conservation groups, including Trout Unlimited, Protect Rhode Island Brook Trout and the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture, are working together to come up with a strategy to protect Rhode Island’s wild trout, but that hasn’t always been the case.

“That’s a real, real big testament to getting everybody together and everybody on the same page,” said Trout Unlimited Rhode Island President, Glenn Place. “… Everybody was just kind of floating out there in the stratosphere and it just took a couple of phone calls and a couple of emails to bring everybody together, because our Rhode Island Chapter is working more the conservation angle. We’re all doing conservation.”

Place noted that Trout Unlimited supports the effort to end stocking in the Upper Wood River.

“The Wood River, that would be our legacy project, to do something with the Wood,” he said.

It’s Not Whether You Stock, but Where

Turek says he has no objection to hatchery fish being stocked in waterbodies that don’t have native trout already living there.

“I understand that there is a portion of our population that likes the recreational fish and they’re fine with catching hatchery trout. I don’t have any issue with that,” he said. “It’s a matter of where the hatchery trout get put in. … Browning Mill Pond – I live right across the street from it. That’s the kind of place, I have no issue with those going in. Why? Because there’s so many invasive fishes already in there, and invasive plants.”

Corayer believes the focus of trout management in Rhode Island should shift from recreation to conservation.

“I believe we have a responsibility to protect wild fish like brookies,” he said. “I don’t believe we have a responsibility to stock ponds for a put and take fishery. We owe those fish from centuries of neglect and abuse. And I firmly believe that our state would be far better served by teaching people about the beauty of our natural surroundings and the potential to catch a gorgeous brook trout in the woods or along the side of the road as opposed to just dumping fish in a pond and letting them succumb to predation and starvation.”

The banner image is a photo of a native Brook Trout. There is a bit of a human hand in the upper right for scale. Thanks to PRIBT for the photograph. Charlestown has some cold water streams still that are tributary to the Pawcatuck River. Protecting the forests that surround these streams is critical to keeping their water cold.