Issue Highlight: Fish Stocking

Campaign Highlight: Fish Stocking
Want to get involved? There are two upcoming listening sessions on October 17 where you can voice your opinion about the state’s practice of non-native fish stocking. Information below:
The Fisheries and Wildlife Board received a request for MassWildlife to stop stocking rainbow trout in the upper Deerfield River. MassWildlife will give a presentation about fisheries management and trout stocking in the Deerfield, and the public will have the opportunity to give feedback. Two sessions will be held on October 17. Details here.
Did you know that the state of Massachusetts uses taxpayer dollars to raise and stock our rivers with non-native fish? These fish, which are unsuited to our local ecosystems, are artificially added to our rivers by Mass Wildlife for the purposes of recreational fishing, though doing so has enormous negative environmental repercussions.
According to Mass Wildlife, their stocked fish are by and large unable to survive in our rivers long-term, meaning that these populations die in large numbers annually, polluting and adding harmful nutrients to our waterways. Studies on non-native fish stocking have demonstrated negative repercussions on native fish populations, having reverberating consequences for the surrounding ecosystem.
BEAT is asking the state of Massachusetts to abandon the practice of stocking non-native fish, a practice based on profit rather than environmental science. Governor Maura Healey recently announced a Biodiversity Mandate requiring the Department of Fish and Game to undertake strategies for protecting habitat and biodiversity in the Commonwealth. We are asking the state to hold to its own stated values and act on a strong foundation of science.
Resources to learn more:
The Trouble With Fish Stocking Scientific American
The Problems with Stocked Fish The Scientific Fly Angler
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