Troutfest is a Fly Fishing Exposition and Fundraiser held in Townsend, Tennessee in the Great Smoky Mountains. Proceeds from this event are donated to Great Smoky Mountains National Park Fisheries Department, Friends of the Smokies Fisheries Scholarship Endowment or other youth educational conservation projects. The Little River Chapter of Trout Unlimited sponsors this event as our major fundraiser and annual festival. This year the event will be one of the largest venues for fly anglers in the Southeast United States. learn more at Troutfest.org
"The main reason for the population surge, scientists here say, is a brief period of cooling in the Northern Pacific ocean in 2008. Cooler currents brought in fatter plankton, which salmon and steelhead smolts thrive on, said ODFW spokesman Rick Swart. Temperatures have since warmed up again."
Despite the Obama administration's decision to side with the State of Illinois in the lawsuit to close the Ship Canal locks, officials have been insisting that turning back the carp's advance is a high priority for the administration. LINK
By now you've probably heard that they found traces of Asian carp DNA on the wrong side of the electric barrier designed to keep the carp menace from invading the Great Lakes. Given the consequences of the buggers making it into the Great Lakes, combined with the need to shut down the electric barrier for maintenance, officials decided to poison a 6 mile segment of the of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal. So far one Asian carp has been found among the carcasses of what could be up to 200,000 pounds of dead fish.
The fish kill is so large that rotenone's manufacturer couldn't supply enough of the poison. Illinois officials had to get donations from fish and wildlife officials in other states. A crew of 200 will work five days to execute the fish kill. LINK (Via: USA Today)
The Army Corp of Imbeciles
One of the options to help keep the carp out of Lake Michigan is to close the Ship Canal locks but the Army Corp says they are not prepared to take that step until they do further study. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and several environmental groups called on that state’s attorney general to take legal action to force the closure of the locks. LINK (Via: The Battle Creek Enquirer)
The sky may not be falling after all
Biologist Duane Chapman knows as much about Asian carp as anyone in the United States, and he says that even though some of the giant fish apparently have breached an electric barrier protecting the Great Lakes, all is not lost. LINK (Via: JS Online}
We've all heard about the giant islands of floating trash in both the Atlantic and Pacific. These photographs of albatross chicks were made in September 2009 on Midway Atoll, a tiny stretch of sand and coral near the middle of the North Pacific. The nesting babies are fed bellies-full of plastic by their parents, who soar out over the vast polluted ocean collecting what looks to them like food to bring back to their young. On this diet of human trash, every year tens of thousands of albatross chicks die on Midway from starvation, toxicity, and choking.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010 at 12:00AM 
