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THE HISTORY OF
THE INTERNATIONAL WILD TROUT SYMPOSIUM
Marty Seldon1
The first International Wild Trout Symposium was held September 25-26, 1974 at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel in Yellowstone National Park. The event was cosponsored by Trout Unlimited and the Department of the Interior US Fish and Wildlife Service, based on the idea for the event that originated with Frank Richardson, TU Executive Director and past FFF President Pete Van Gytenbeek, John Peters of the EPA at a 1973 luncheon in Denver. The concept received the enthusiastic support of the Assistant Secretary of the Interior for Fish, Wildlife and Parks, and past FFF Senior Advisor, Nathaniel P. Reed. The sponsoring group was joined and the Symposium hosted by Yellowstone National Park's Jack Anderson. Willis King was also on the Organizing Committee. Over 300 anglers, writers, students, and professionals from every trout region in the United States and Canada met on common ground to talk about wild trout and establish a new tradition. There were panels covering Anadromous Species, Water Quality and Quantity, Habitat and Species, Regulations and Politics and a number of Special Sessions. Presenters included a number of familiar names such as Roger Barnhart, Gardner Grant, Ray White, Bob Wiley and our good friend A. Starker Leopold. Dick Vincent presented his well-known paper on the effects of stocking catchables on wild trout populations and Wilfred Carter head of the International Salmon Federation discussed Atlantic salmon management.
The initial consensus was to hold these Symposiums every five years and 1979 added the Federation of Fly Fishers as a cosponsor. John Townsley joined the Organizing Committee. Frank Richardson was Chairman.
Gardner Grant and Mike Owen, the respective FFF and TU Presidents, were Assistant Chairmen. Wild Trout-II, September 24-25, 1979, primarily focused on managing fish and anglers with fewer papers on managing water and watersheds. WT-II emphasized the importance of genetic adaptations in strains of trout and that locally adapted populations have great ecological advantages. The distinguished Lee Wulff and others discussed the importance of preserving the quality of the angling experience as differentiated from the full-creel mentality, and there were perplexing reports documenting declining fisheries. Rupe Andrews and Gerry Taylor compared the similar problems of the great Alaska and British Columbia fisheries. Ron Marcoux and John Varley brought us up to date on the results of the major Catch-and-Release fishery studies on the Madison River and in Yellowstone National Park. It was gratifying to see the very positive results. It all started in the Park with the major undertaking by Jack Anderson to save the cutthroat fishery in Yellowstone by closing angling at Fishing Bridge and establishing no-kill regulations. Starker Leopold asked that all administrators assign a high priority to the study of watershed relationships, such as grazing to trout populations. He said that better data to justify the conservation of riparian zones adjacent to streams is the real key to improved trout management.
The Symposium format remained the same. At WT-III, September 24-25, 1984, the US Department of Agriculture shared sponsorship. Roger Barnhart was Chairman again assisted by Gardner Grant and Mike Owen. Frank Richardson headed Programs along with Bob Barbee on Logistics and Bob Hamre Editorial. Keynote addresses by G. Ray Arnett Assistant Secretary of the Interior and John Crowell Assistant Secretary of Agriculture reminded us of the stark reality of a troubled resource, limited funding, competition among users, and the demanding effort we must all dedicate to the stewardship of our trout and salmon. Jackson Hole's Rev. Dan Abrams inspired us with a tale of the worth of a trout that extends far beyond nostalgia, sentimentalism and winter dreams. Ben Dysart, President of the National Wildlife Foundation, dramatically pointed to the larger picture and how trout hatchery management solutions have changed to encompass complete watershed management.
In August 1983, one year before WT-III the entire wildlife community lost a dear friend and a strong advocate. A. Starker Leopold an outstanding naturalist, teacher, author and effective public policy advisor, passed away at his home in Berkeley, California. It was a tragic loss to all. In recognition of his gentle eminence, the Sponsoring Committee established the A. Starker Leopold Award as a continuing memorial. Awards are given to a professional and a nonprofessional who over time have made significant contributions to the preservation of wild trout. The first awardees were Bob Behnke and Marty Seldon.
The mission of the National Wild Trout Symposium is to provide a forum for professional wild trout biologists and fishery conservationists to interact, to get to know each other in an informal setting, and to be exposed to the latest wild trout status, science, technology and philosophy. These conferences equip participants to better preserve and restore this magnificent but declining resource. Although major national speakers and agency heads and administrators participate, this forum focuses on the needs of working level wild trout professionals and conservationists not on the requirements and problems of agency or organization management. The originators hoped that each symposium would be a building block upon which the succeeding symposium could take hold and provide, in turn, insights and research which future sessions could use to advantage.
Wild Trout IV was held September 18-19,1989. Over the past 15 years, the Proceedings have grown from 102 pages to 233 pages as have the contents and scope of the presentations. The Environmental Protection Agency and the American Fisheries Society were added as cosponsors. Frank Richardson and Gardner Grant cochaired the symposium.
One of the major keynotes was by Nathaniel P. Reed who addressed the progress we made in the fifteen years that intervened since WT-I. He talked about our inability to explain ecosystem management to the public as was the case with the Yellowstone fires last year. He pointed out how Jack Anderson's restoration of the cutthroat trout with advice from Starker Leopold and Durward Allen made it possible to restore the Grizzly populations. Mr. Reed, as were many of us, said he was thrilled to see Luna Leopold with us this year and that we. as the caring vanguard, had fulfilled the constant need to better manage man's rapacious appetites in exceptional ways so that we can continue to save planet earth and the wild trout that seek to share it with us.
NWF's Benjamin Dysart joined us again as a Keynoter and although he approved of our scientific approaches to watershed, fishery and habitat restoration, he pointed out that something more was needed to really be effective. What is needed is to come up with h projects that have scenarios where everyone wins. Win-Win situations come about by working with right-minded developers, with the agencies, and with the anglers. The real challenge is to have desirable development that is done in a way that does not preclude public environmental quality values. When this takes place everyone can win.
Bob Behnke was the WT-IV Symposium Summarizer. He looked at our progress including his observation that state and federal hatchery salmonid production had grown from a total of 169.4 million in 1958 of which 50.2 million were catchable trout, to 256.5 million salmonids in 1983 of which 78 million were catchable trout. The cost of each trout varied from $1.06 to $3.62 per fishing license sold creating an economic imbalance. Bob told us we could provide more angler days at lower cost by creating more wild trout opportunities and that more investigation is needed in this area. The 1989 A. Starker Leopold Award recipients were Frank Richardson and Otto H. Teller.
The organization of Wild Trout Symposiums normally include Sunday Registration and a speakers and committee meeting and reception. Monday morning starts with a plenary session usually with top-level agency speakers like the Secretary of the Interior followed by two and a half days of sessions on all aspects of wild trout. There is an awards luncheon and a banquet. WT-IV has panels including: the overall resource, fishery restoration, wildfire, drought and wild trout, fishery management, and fish economics, each with five to seven individual twenty minute presentations. The Symposium also includes poster papers and several exhibits. Well known author Richard Telleur reported on 25 years of no-kill regulations on New York's Beaverkill and Willowemoc rivers and an economic boom in Roscoe, New York that resulted from these special regulations. Similar results took place in Canada's five Atlantic seaboard provinces with no-kill Atlantic salmon regulations.
Wild Trout-V was held September 26-27, 1994 at the Symposium Headquarters at Mammoth Hot Springs Hotel in Yellowstone National Park. Roger Barnhart and Ron Jones were cochairman with the theme, "Wild Trout in the 21st Century." All three major arms of the Department of the Interior, The National Biological Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service joined the ranks of Symposium cosponsors.
Jay Hair, National Wildlife Federation President and CEO presented the message that our society desperately needs to return to a sense of place. Exhilarating wild trout fishing is an endangered experience.
Secretary of the Interior Bruce Babbitt reflected on his experiences with issues of trout and ecosystems. He spoke about water quality and grazing impacts and how new ESA, Section 404 of the Clean Water Act and nonpoint pollution standards will protect our fisheries. He believed that the Forest Plan Management Act would help establish buffer zones in logging operations and that mining, urban expansion, water consumption, and road construction need similar attention and planning. "We can learn from the tragedies and mistakes of the past and begin to move toward an equilibrium upon the landscape."
There has been conflict going on for many years over these issues and it flares up in every generation. Our response has not been adequate to the Sagebrush Rebellion, The Great Fight or the Wise Use Movement. There are far too many signs of the environmental movement and the classic sportsmen conservation groups drifting apart. We are loosing too many sportsmen's groups and they are not pulling their weight as they should. Wild trout advocates need to bridge the gap between resource conservation and the sportsman tradition of Teddy Roosevelt. Good science is wonderful but in the final analysis it's political clout. We need to find our constituencies make certain they understand that everyone's concerns are tied together to get quality ecosystems. That understanding has to be translated into political action. 1994 Recipients of the A. Starker Leopold Award were Ron Jones and Gardner Grant.
WT-V also looked at the negative aspects of the animal rights movement and introduced the use of DNA analysis to track the movement and interactions of 26 cutthroat trout populations. This work offered better approaches to defining genetic diversity and
indicated that we can not draw valid conclusions from only looking at single isolated populations. Other papers included a view of New England Atlantic salmon restoration where populations in 28 rivers have declined from 1.1 million returning adults to less than 4,000. Ray White discussed why wild trout matter, we looked at wild trout management in British Columbia, and at a number of restoration projects.
Robert Martin summarized WT-V by pointing out that the greater public will determine the future of wild trout in the next century. It was about time we stopped pedantic discourses on "when is a wild trout a wild trout." There should be no dispute that in an environmentally balanced world wild trout would always be preferred over hatchery trout. Hatcheries represented only the need for temporary mitigation. The clarion theme of WT-V was that those involved in wild trout must convince the greater public of their value if they are to survive. Fishery management agencies must represent and protect the interest of the unorganized groups. Managers and advocates must stop arguing among themselves and share their passion for wild trout with the public. The other improvement that was instituted was to increase the symposium frequency from 5-years to 3-years to be better able to keep up with the more rapidly changing resource.
In an effort to overcome one of the difficulties, of the limited capacity and accommodations at Mammoth Hot Springs, Wild Trout-VI was held at the excellent convention facilities of Montana State University, Bozeman, Montana. Pat Dwyer was Symposium Chairman. Attendance was limited by the American Fisheries Society scheduling their conference on the West Coast the following week, but WT-VI presented one of the better technical sessions. The Symposium was organized into panels that included: Public Awareness and Education, What's a Wild Trout Worth (economics), Wild Trout Family Trees (genetics), Trout in Trouble (diseases and threats) and Trout on the Rebound (restoration projects). Each panel consisted of 5-10 papers; each limited to a 20 minute presentation and 5 minutes of questions. Papers ran from Monday morning, all day Tuesday and half day on Wednesday. The 1997 recipients of the A. Starker Leopold Award were Roger Barnhart and Ernie Schwiebert.
Wild Trout-VI focused on the formation of user group and agency partnerships including ones for bull trout in Alberta, Canada, cutthroat trout in Colorado, and one with the University of Moscow to preserve Kamchatka Peninsula steelhead. It looked at improved management techniques, the latest developments in genetic research, and at the increasing public use of National Parks impacting all fish and wildlife. Examples of the value of wild trout included a $9 million annual economic contribution by anglers after the institution of barbless hook, Catch-and-Release fishing on the Beaverkill and Willowemoc watersheds in Upper New York State. New DNA analysis was used to confirm the discovery of new salmonid species/subspecies of New Mexico Gila trout, cutthroat trout in Colorado and Nevada as well as three different groups similar to cutthroat trout in Kamchatca. Work in this exciting field is just beginning. WT-VI looked at the serious problems being caused by Lake Trout in Yellowstone Lake and the spread of Whirling disease. Possible threats from Global Warming and examples of the loss of more cold water habitat and rainbow-cutthroat trout hybridization in Idaho, Montana, and Ontario Canada were also presented.
Examples of successful restoration projects were highlighted by well known River Keeper Ron Holloway who discussed how Great Britain's Itchen River wild brown trout fishery had been abused, destroyed and then restored over the past three centuries. Consideration of the management of the total watershed rather just attacking problems at specific sites was one of the main factors. Man has the knowledge to "put the natives back into wild trout". What is needed is the will. Spencer Turner, WT-VI Summarizer concluded that professionals, guides and all the user groups have a lot in common including our love of wild trout and of the rich, cold, environs that support these wondrous creatures. We all need to continue to work together but we have come light years since Wild Trout-I and that the future of wild trout resources is quite optimistic.
A highlight at WT-VI was the legendary Ernie Schwiebert who extolled the poetry of wild trout he loved as a child. 'Everything about such wild trout is beautiful. The cold lakes and rivers that sustain them are beautiful. The methods of catching them are beautiful, the equipment we use is beautiful, and the flies we dress them with are beautiful. Fly fishing is both old and honorable. Its roots like in medieval chivalry itself, and we share a literature of sport more than five centuries old. It is filled with bright rivers tumbling swiftly toward the salty, the deft choreography of swifts and swallows working to a hatch of fly, and the quicksilver poetry of the trout themselves. And. In seeking their beauty, we may still discover that beauty itself is the most endangered thing of all."
Wild Trout-VII started the new millennium and brought us back to Yellowstone National Park, where these important meetings originated. Initial planning by the Organizing Committee for Wild Trout-VIII suggested a possible return to the 1904 Old Faithful Inn and Lodge and that it be held in 2004 to commemorate the 30th anniversary of these Symposiums. We hope you will join us in the land of the magnificent cutthroat around the geysers, the bison, the bugling elk, and the occasional bear and coyote. We need your contribution to meet our ever pressing obligation to preserving and enhance what Ernie Schwiebert sees as the beauty of wild trout.
Wild Trout-VIII, the 30th anniversary of these forums, will be held in the Fall of 2004. Planning is underway to obtain the Lake Hotel in Yellowstone National Park. The Theme, "Ensuring the Future of Wild Trout: Working Together," has been adopted and the organizing committee is developing events, programs and speakers that will attract international participation.
1 Marty Seldon, Federation of Fly Fishers, member of the Symposium Organizing Committee since 1979, Sunnyvale, California.