Hunters and Anglers, some of our keenest and most experienced observers of the natural world, are increasingly freaked out by climate change.
Above, trailer for a new movie about climate impacts on sport fishing.
Growth rates may increase in warmer waters, but so too would stress from excessively high temperatures. Northerly lakes may become more suitable for warm-water species, but fish may have no means to move into these areas
unassisted. Warming may also affect prey species or the broader ecosystem.Warmer air could also lead to earlier stratification of lakes and ponds in the spring, causing increases in summer fish kills due to oxygen depleted waters. Seasonal temperature stratification is a normal process for temperate zone lakes wherein the steep temperature gradient between shallow warm water and cold deep water during the summer prevents mixing of the water layers.17 This inhibits delivery of oxygen-rich water from the surface to the lower depths, leading to fish kills in deep waters.18,19 In states like Minnesota where early stratification is becoming an issue, lakes may someday be unable to support lake trout and other species that live in the deepest, coldest zones.
Rising temperatures threaten to compromise the success of restoration efforts underway in many freshwater systems. For example, the restoration of a diverse fish community to Ohio’s lower Black River is at risk due to rising stream temperatures
projected with climate change.21 The maximum temperature thresholds22 for 12 of 22 of the river’s fish species assessed would be exceeded by mid-century based on projected increases in water temperature. Especially vulnerable are the river’s cool-water species, such as the white sucker, as well as popular sport fish such as pumpkinseed, yellow perch, rock bass, and
smallmouth bass.
Fish are sensitive to temperature, explained Jack Williams, a senior scientist with the conservation group Trout Unlimited and a co-author of the NWF report, who describes a massive geographical shift in fish species already underway. “Already, native trout have been pushed around,” Williams wrote in an email.
“Non-native species are pushing up from downstream and have sent the native trout into the higher elevation streams,” Williams explained. “Unfortunately, these streams are going to be hard hit as wildfire, drought, and increased storm intensities hit these isolated high-elevation areas hard.” (See “Amid Drought, Explaining Colorado’s Extreme Floods.”)
“In the Southwest,” said Williams, “the evidence is in your face each time you survey a stream.” Small streams in New Mexico, home to Rio Grande cutthroat, Gila, and Apache trout, are particularly susceptible to temperature increases.
Making things even worse are the wildfires, which Williams says the Southwest is seeing “at scales that we have not seen before.” Wildfires rip through trout habitat, and the increased runoff that results when the riparian areas burn eventually leads to siltation effects. “It’s a killer one-two punch in these small streams,” said Williams
My friend Todd Tanner is founder and President of Conservation Hawks, an organization of Hunters and Anglers that seeks to raise awareness on climate change.
Todd Tanner interviewed in Syracuse.com:
You talk about walking outside and observing. Talk about what you see outside of your home in Montana.
Our snows come later than they use to, the run-off in the spring comes earlier. Our forests are dying here – millions of acres of trees. As the climate has warmed, it’s dried. Trees are stressed by the lack of precipitation and that allows insects like pine bark beetles to attack the trees. You don’t get the cold snaps like you use to, which used to hold the insect numbers down. In addition, our forest fire season is about two months longer than it used to be.
Also, we’re getting more stream closures. With things getting warmer, and the run-off (snow melt) coming earlier, the trout stream temperatures are getting unnaturally hot here in the later part of the summer. As a protection for the fish, a number of trout streams are being shut down later in the summer to fishing. That never used to happen when I first moved here.
Finally, we’re losing access to hunting areas. With the colder winters, the snow would push the elk, white-tailed deer and mule deer down from the mountains. Now, since it doesn’t get cold as quick, they’re staying up at the higher elevations, and are coming down later in the hunting season – or not at all.
My video on Hunters, Anglers, and Climate Change, is below.
We’ll need guys like this on side in order to move the conservatives voters.
But the elected GOP members don’t seem to listen to anyone without deep pockets and many Dems are no better.
I’m with Todd Tanner when he says “That never used to happen when I first moved here”, and would add “It wasn’t like this when I first VISITED here” to take in the places I’ve traveled to over the years.
I have caught trout in 10 states, but only hunted in NJ when I was growing up (and nowhere else since I moved to VA 50+ years ago). I have traveled through 46 states and things ARE changing most everywhere regarding fish and wildlife populations and habitats, and not for the better.
Some populations of “wild game” like whitetail deer, canadian geese, and turkeys ARE increasing dramatically, but they are no longer really “wild” and are a product of urban sprawl and man’s intrusion on the environment. Just finished a great book—Nature Wars, by Jim Sterba, Crown Pub, 2012. It goes back to the arrival of the earliest colonists and before and chronicles how badly we have managed wildlife in this country, particularly in the recent past.
Sterba also discusses the anthropocentrism that has led to the extremes of biocentrism that have now us calling our pets “companions” and refusing to deal with the havoc we have created by NOT simply eradicating problem deer, geese, and feral cats because “they’re living things and have RIGHTS”.
It’s nice that fishermen and hunters are coming over because their ox is now being visibly gored—many of them ARE conservatives—-but there are only about 30 million fishing licenses and 15 million hunting licenses sold in this country each year, and so much of the rest of America is losing touch with the real world that their influence may not be much. Especially when they have to choose between those “conservative” values and behaviors that have contributed to AGW and their sport.
Those numbers of hunting & fishing conservatives may be more influential than you realize. Most likely they live in red states with relatively low populations so it doesn’t take a great many to swing the vote.
And those states have 2 senators each, just like every other and Senate elections can’t be gerrymandered.
There’s truth to the idea that a higher proportion of those in red states likely buy hunting and fishing licenses than in some of the bluer states like MA. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that just because their hunting and fishing is now being more heavily impacted by AGW that they will be :swinging” their voting patterns enough for it to become “influential”. Old habits die hard, etc. It may make them listen a bit harder to anti-AGW arguments, but the old “lower taxes, smaller government, less regulation, capitalism rules, thump the bible” BS they live by is very powerful.
The gerrymandering damage has already been done at the House level and may be nearly irreversible. The fact that a small red state has two Senators (the same as CA or NY) and therefore wields disproportionate power there, is what is killing us, not that there is no gerrymandering in the Senate. Not sure what point you make there.
My point was that if you get popular Senators on board, they’re tough to dislodge as they can’t be redistricted.
And all that Bible-thumpin’ may also work in you favor – the Catholics are not alone in coming around to the idea that good stewardship of the environment is in keeping with the faith.
LOL “Popular” Senators just get UNelected in the red states if they don’t suck on the tea bags—-it doesn’t require redistricting. We lost some good ones this time.
“Numerous other examples of attacks against persons skeptical of the environmental cannon could be cited. Characteristically the attacks are attempts to discredit and smear, not to engage in an honest debate. Honest public debate on environmental issues is rare. The claim, often repeated, that the doomsday claims of global warming are settled science, is a claim intended to shut down debate. People with honest scientific questions or objections are depicted as idiots who probably think the Earth is flat.”
http://bit.ly/1KhxErn
Here’s fletch, wandering in the woods of old and forgotten threads. And whining. And posting a link to American Thinker article (motto—“ten years of stinking thinking”) written by a Heartland Stooge, Norman Rogers.
Of course, fletch shoots off another toe because the article describes HIM and his mindless denier brethren far better than those who attack him. To wit:
“Pareto believed that men form their beliefs from emotion or sentiment and that rational justifications for beliefs are constructed after the belief has been subscribed to. In other words, the rational justification is window dressing. Pareto also thought that men deceive themselves about the origin of their beliefs, not recognizing that their beliefs are the consequence of sentiment. Men claim, and believe, that their beliefs are the result of rational thought”.
“Because belief is emotional at its root, it is extremely difficult to make ideological conversions by logical argument. Logical arguments won’t work because the believer will mount a logical defense to every argument and will be impervious to rebuttals”.
He’s talking about YOU, fletch!
So,Prieto was a climate scientist was he, that’s the extent of your crap!
No, Pareto (correct spelling) was an economist and sociologist, and as such would have had little business commenting on climate science. To say nothing of the fact that he has been DEAD for 90+ years and probably never heard of AGW.
Your boy Norman Rogers has no business talking about AGW either, since he is just a paid Heartland stooge who has training in computers and physics and has never published a single paper.
It goes without saying that YOU have no business wasting our time with your asinine comments, because you have NO credentials at all. Go away!