The new director of California Trout
Last March, Tom Hesseldenz took over the reins of the advocacy organization California Trout, replacing Richard May, who retired after serving 20 years as Executive Director. This changing of the guard seemed particularly newsworthy to us at California Fly Fisher, because even those who might have disagreed with Richard May’s tactics, or were on the wrong side of the struggle to save our state’s wild trout fisheries, recognized that he had logged a number of critical victories during his tenure as CalTrout’s leader. And now Richard was stepping down – it being time, as he put it, “for the young trout warriors to take over.”
Tom Hesseldenz, 39, is certainly one of these young lions. Trained as a biologist and an environmental planner, he served four years as CalTrout’s Region 1 (northern California) manager, and before that has spent a decade overseeing the Nature Conservancy’s McCloud River Preserve, where he was instrumental in leading the fight to protect both the river and its surrounding watershed.
We were curious as to the vision Tom has for CalTrout, and as to his ideas and priorities regarding the organization’s future responsibilities. We hope his comments are as interesting and provocative for you as they were for us.
CFF: Tom, describe CalTrout for those of us who might be unfamiliar with the organization.
TH: CalTrout is a statewide nonprofit conservation organization that’s been around for about 20 years. We focus on protecting and restoring trout and their habitat, and, secondarily, on providing quality fishing opportunities.
CFF: In general, how do you go about doing this?
TH: In the past it’s been accomplished primarily through influencing the Department of Fish and Game, occasionally through seeking appropriate legislation, and when necessary by using the courts. We’ve been very effective in all three arenas. What we’d like to do in the future, though, is put more emphasis on cooperative win-win type solutions as there has increasingly been a problem with political backlash to the narrow focus that conservationists have traditionally employed.
CFF: So the CalTrout approach is to try and meet the needs of all the parties concerned with an issue?
TH: Yes; to reach a balance without compromising our goals with regard to protecting and restoring trout and and their waters. Instead of looking at these problems from an all-or-nothing point of view, we look at them from a point of view that encompasses the needs of trout and the needs of society as a whole. The lines that separate different interest groups are not as well defined as they used 10 be. Although the old “us versus-them” approach is much easier for us to use, it’s no longer providing the payoffs that we experienced two decades ago when CalTrour was first formed. If we want to continue to have a meaningful influence on the policies that affect trout, then we have to address the issues of jobs and local economic conditions, balancing resource use and resource quality.
CFF: How specifically has CalTrout applied this cooperative approach?
TH: Our most recent and biggest _ example would be the spill on the Sacramento River. Instead of raking the more traditional and narrow tactic of suing Southern Pacific for killing all of the fish in the river, we chose instead to work cooperatively with SP, recognizing that the situation was more complex than simply giving SP all of the blame. The substance that entered the river, Metam-Sodium, is not registered as a hazardous material; if it were it would have been at the back of the train instead of at the front, and it would have been in a double-walled rank car. Just by being at the back of the train it would not have gone into the river – only the front seven cars derailed. The railroad was not violating any laws in terms of its length of train, it just had the misfortune of having a derailment during what was otherwise a legal operation. They are also required by law to ship what is given 10 them, so they were in no position to question this chemical.
CFF: But wasn’t SP required to use a pusher engine following their 1976 detergent spill at Cantara Loop? [Common thought Is that an engine pushing the train up the loop might have prevented the 1991 spill.)
TH: My understanding is that SP isn’t legally required to use pusher engines for trains of less than 45 hundred tons in weight. The train that derailed last year was about 43 hundred tons. It’s also unclear as to what extent a pusher engine would have helped. The loss of traction that caused the derailment seems to have resulted from a variety of factors, the lack of a pusher engine possibly being just one. But if it was an important factor, then preventative measures must be implemented. We’ll address 1he issue of cause when the faces are in.
Our immediate priority is to address the damages caused by the spill, and to do this, we’re taking a comprehensive approach and working with all of 1he entities affected by the disaster – the local communities, the railroad, and the State. In terms of the railroad, we are trying to show SP the ways to best compensate for the environmental and broader economic impacts of the spill. In terms of the local communities, we have some ideas about what would be best for managing the river, but instead of lobbying for implementation in Sacramento – in isolation of local concerns – we feel that what’s best for the river is also going to be best for the area’s residents and businesses. We aren’t just working with Southern Pacific; we’re also working with the people of Dunsmuir and the surrounding region.
CFF: Might not critics claim CalTrout Is compromising itself by using this conciliatory approach?
TH: Yes, a few critics have said that, but most people have been very understanding of our approach. Overall, I’ve been very impressed by the public’s response. Most people understand that the issue is not so simple as SP having screwed up. Besides, if we take too simplistic of an approach there’s the real chance that we’ll just force the chemicals up onto Interstate 5, which also runs parallel to the river. We would not be any better off in terms of protecting the river.
CFF: Is Southern Pacific amenable to the ideas being put forward by Ca1Trout?
TH: They were very receptive to 1he ideas that we put forward. What led to our intervention last fall was that there was no public agency designated to take a comprehensive approach toward restoring the river and the local economy. The Department of Fish and Game was the lead agency on the spill, but its mandate is focused on fish and wildlife, and it was directed by law to go in and do a damage assessment, which is what it did. A lot more needed to be happening than just a damage assessment. Nobody else was doing it. and the entity capable of acting immediately was Southern Pacific because it had the money and it had the incentive. We came in with some ideas that were more community-oriented and river-oriented, including trail construction, riverside trash cleanup, off-stream fishing opportunities, and a public outreach program. The response to our programs from the railroad has been very good, and although the local communities were apprehensive at first, there has recently been a lot of support from them as well.
CFF: CalTrout’s response to the upper Sacramento spill is a reactive response; what proactive programs does CalTrout have to head off the sorts of problems that might degrade trout habitat?
TH: We’re involved with forest planning on the state and federal levels, encouraging better forest management practices that will improve the protection of trout waters affected by timber harvests and other uses of public lands.
We have retained a consultant, Bret Matzke, to review and comment on the federal Land Management Plans that control logging and grazing practices in the national forests. At the state level, we’re involved with the State Forest Practices Act to try and improve the regulations that control timber harvests on nonfederal lands.
Regarding water issues, we’ve generally been reactive – filing lawsuits and seeking administrative relief – in dealing with the issues that have surfaced to date, such as the dewatering of streams. We hope to get more proactive in terms of finding creative solutions to these problems.
CFF: CalTrout recently opened an office in Sacramento. What is the role of this office?
TH: To improve our access to agency headquarters and the legislature. Part of our work in Sacramento involves lobbying, but most of it is just being there to attend meetings and communicate with agencies regarding the programs that affect trout management. The projects that Jim Hamilton (Sacro staff] has been focusing on are timber management and water issues. Our new office is paying off in that it’s giving us new opportunities to provide immediate, meaningful input into planning and policymaking efforts.
CFF: Back to reactive programs. What is CalTrout doing with regard to stream restoration?
TH: In the past, CalTrouc hasn’t had the resources to do much on the ground in terms of willow planting or fence building or rock rolling. Although we’ve completed a number of such projects – good examples are Yellow Creek and Hat Creek – we’d like to do more. One of our roles is that of catalyst, as when we filed suit against the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to rewater and restore Mono Lake’s tributary streams. The restoration work is being paid for by LADWP. CalTrout isn’t itself doing the restoration, but we set the stage for it to happen, and we’re watching carefully to make sure it proceeds in a manner that we’re comfortable with.
CFF: Reading between the lines of your statement, it sounds as if CalTrout won its lawsuit against LADWP.
TH: Yes, and has defended challenges to that lawsuit. This is an example of the “last resort.” Again, we’d prefer to get involved with a resource need – a trout conservation need – in a cooperative capacity. Many of the problems that we tackle are not necessarily black and white; they often involve participants who do not need to be threatened with a lawsuit to make something happen, who are going to understand the problems and want to do something to help solve them, particularly if the solutions don’t put them out of business. We are going to keep our quiver full with our various arrows – such as the threat of legal action – that we need to achieve our goals, but I do perceive a shift. For example, not only do I see more cooperative solutions occurring, but I see us taking a much more active role in education.
CFF: In what way?
TH: As one example, the media coverage of the upper Sacramento River spill gave us a tremendous opportunity to educate the public at large as to the difference between native trout and hatchery-raised trout. Most people were ignorant of this difference, but it’s a very real concern for trout management because you’re pulling genetically domesticated fish in with fish that have evolved to adapt to a particular watershed. In time, the current hatchery program is going to erode California’s trout biodiversity. And that diversity is very valuable – not only in biological terms, but also to fishermen, because it is where a lot of the excitement of the sport comes from. It’s not simply catching fish; it’s going to the upper Sacramento River and catching an upper Sacramento River trout, or going 10 the McCloud River and catching a McCloud River trout.
One of the biggest things that has stood in the way of improving fisheries management in California has been the lack of understanding – by fishermen and the general public – of this basic generic issue. Education can play a tremendous role in overcoming this ignorance. The Department of Fish and Game’s hatchery program starred at a time when those differences weren’t recognized scientifically, and when hatchery managers felt they could do a better job at raising fish than nature.
When fisheries became depleted through overharvest or through habitat degradation, the easiest way to respond to the loss was just to raise fish in a hatchery and dump them into the stream. But not only is there a genetic problem – the risk of hybridization _ there’s also the problem of never having the incentive to deal with the real causes of the decline in the first place. We need to restore habitat that’s been degraded, and prevent habitat from being degraded in the future.
In instances that involve over harvest, we need to decide whether we are going to control the overharvest through sportfishing regulations that ensure natural reproduction can be sustained or through augmenting depleted populations with hatchery-raised fish. In some cases, we will want to use hatchery fish.
CFF: Say what?
TH: CalTrout is not fundamentally against the hatchery program. We feel that it needs to be revamped, and a clear distinction needs to be made between fisheries that should be managed for native trout and fisheries that can justifiably be managed as “put-and-take” fisheries with hatchery trout. Streams like the upper Sacramento River, which are highly productive and have an abundance of good spawning habitat, should be managed for native trout. On the other hand, high-elevation lakes that never had fish, man-made reservoirs, and certain stream systems in urban areas that get a lot of use and have been highly altered and cannot be restored – these sorts of waters are entirely appropriate for stocking with hatchery trout. And by stocking trout in these places, we create opportunities for people to go fishing, and we take some of the pressure off waters that contain native trout.
With this holistic approach, we can avoid some of the traditional pitfalls that groups like ours run into, where we propose wild trout management programs that upset and alienate anglers who like hatchery trout, creating a backlash. If we come in with a reasoned, strongly defensible rationale that explains why certain areas should be managed for wild trout, and show that we are also providing hatchery trout elsewhere, then our chances for success are improved – and again, that’s where the educational part of it comes in. Education is, in many cases, needed in advance of changes in management.
CFF: CalTrout has in the past proposed that the State develop a “wild trout” hatchery. Isn’t this a contradiction in terms?
TH: It definitely sounds like a contradiction in terms, but it will make sense if I explain the components of the concept. One component is the use of hatchery technology to raise native trout for stream restoration and to enhance certain streams by raising exotic trout that are better adapted to unusual or degraded conditions. Once planted, these trout will reproduce on their own, thereby allowing their offspring to become wild. Related to the exotic trout concept is the opportunity to conduct research on wild trout, such as genetic studies and analyses of sensitivity to pollutants and water temperatures.
Another component is management-related and involves creating a benign form of hatchery trout – one that wouldn’t represent the hazard of generic hybridization. For example, native broodstock could be captured and bred in a hatchery setting, raising the offspring to a catchable size and using them to stock put-and-take fisheries. You’re still providing fish out of a truck, and they’re easier to catch than wild trout – which appeals to a segment of the user group – but you’re not placing genetically domesticated fish into the system, so you’re not putting the native trout in the system at risk.
An example of where the wild trout hatchery concept is already in place is Eagle Lake, which has a unique sub-species of trout found nowhere else, adapted to highly alkaline conditions, that grows very fast to a very large size – a beautiful trout, a very good eating trout. This fishery was threatened with extinction as a result of many years of overgrazing along the primary spawning tributary. The lake is in a high desert environment, and the water regime is very delicate, overgrazing resulted in a situation where this particular tributary ended up with an inadequate flow during spawning season for the fish to reach spawning habitat. The trout were quickly going extinct, and DFG, back in the 1950s, started using hatchery technology to sustain the population. They have been incredibly successful with the program.
The fortunate thing is that DFG had the wisdom to use wild trout hatchery techniques in their approach – continually going back to the lake to obtain broodstock, rather than raising broodstock in a hatchery over many generations, and not trying to hybridize the Eagle Lake subspecies with other trout. There is still an issue the purposeful selection of the kind of fish produced for the lake – the fish that are stocked are those that grow biggest within the shortest amount of time – but the point is that DFG has been able to retain the Eagle Lake trout gene pool. As is typical with the hatchery program, people pretty much gave up on restoring the habitat in the spawning tributary, but CalTrout is now involved with Lassen National Forest in trying to restore the stream, and we can do it only because DFG’s de facto wild trout hatchery saved the subspecies. Similar opportunities at Goose Lake for a type of redband trout that has serious habitat problems but is still retrievable.
CFF: How is CalTrout organized to accomplish its objectives?
TH: CalTrout started as a one-man show, and as it grew it became apparent that we need regional representation. The first regions established were patterned exactly after the Department of Fish and Game’s five regions of the state. I actually came into the organization as the first manager for Region 1, which consists of the eight northern countries of California. In being in that position, it was apparent to me that I really had two subregions that were very different from each other, and I needed another person to help me with it. I hired Tom Weseloh to cover the coastal half, which consists primarily of salmon and steelhead fisheries, whereas north-eastern California is primarily resident fisheries. Now that I’ve taken the position of Executive Director, I’ve hired Chip O’Brien in Redding to cover northeastern California. I’ve also given part of Region 3 to Tom Weseloh because the issues facing it are essentially the same as the issues he’s already been dealing with on the north coast.
CFF: Region 3 is the region centered around the Bay Area?
TH: Right, but it stretches from Santa Maria in the south up to the Eel River. What’s left of Region 3, after giving up the northern part of it to the North Coast Region, also has two subunits: the Bay Area and the Central Coast. I would eventually like to have somebody in the San Luis Obispo area working with those streams – Arroyo de la Cruz, for example, and the Carmel River and the Whale Rock Reservoir – they’re generally small waters, but they represent significant fishery resources.
Basically, we’re using a bioregional approach from the point of view of incorporating complete watersheds and similar watersheds into CalTrout’s regions. Down in Region 5, which is southern California, we again have two very distinctive subregions: the eastern Sierra and the south coast. Jim Edmondson covers the region as a whole, but he’s headquartered in Los Angeles. We hope to eventually have a paid position in the eastern Sierra to complement Jim’s work.
Region 2 is the northern Sierra, and Region 4 is the central Sierra; these two regions do not need to be modified. Ultimately, I would see Region 2 managed out of Sacramento, and Region 4 managed out of the Fresno area. With a full buildout of the organization – which I’d like to aim for over the next three years – I would envision offices in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, and Redding, with outposts in the Eureka, San Luis Obispo, Fresno, and Bishop areas.
One thing that has really proven itself true over the last several years is that we can accomplish a hell of a lot more by having paid staff in the regions – you get more effective person-to-person contact, you know the people who are working “on the ground” in the agencies, you know the landowners and you know the anglers. Direct contact is vital to the success of CalTrout.
CFF: What are CalTrout’s intentions regarding working with other organizations?
TH: We hope to get beyond the rivalries that have existed in the past between CalTrout, Trout Unlimited, and the Federation of Fly Fishers and bring those groups – along with United Anglers, the California Sportfishing Protection Alliance, and others – together. We all occupy different niches, and there is more than enough work for everyone to do, but we need to work more efficiently and in a coordinated manner.
With respect to Trout Unlimited, I think that they have proven themselves to be very effective at the federal level, and groups like CalTrout, Oregon Trout, and Washington Trout have proven that there’s a very real need for state-level trout conservation organizations. It may be that the best long-term solution is for TU to play the role of an umbrella organization and to encourage state organizations in every state that has trout waters. There is a precedent for this sort of structure in the Nature Conservancy. The California Nature Conservancy is very strong at a state level; it has its own board and does its own fundraising, but it performs a different role than the national organization. They’re complementary.
CFF: Plans for the future: what are CalTrout’s priorities?
TH: We’re currently in the process of putting together a three-year plan that identifies and prioritizes our goals and lays out the means for achieving them. Among our main priorities are to encourage the State to place more of an emphasis on native trout management and trout biodiversity and to revamp the State’s hatchery program – with the goal in mind not of getting rid of it but of striking a better balance between native trout management and put-and-take management.
The protection of trout habitat through improved timber management and grazing practices remains an extremely important objective of ours, as does ensuring that trout fisheries throughout the state receive adequate stream flows. We also plan to expand our staff of volunteers and paid personnel, especially in critical CalTrout regions.
We have always done very well in advocating angling regulations that sustain both native and trophy trout fisheries, and we’ll continue strongly in this area – even improve upon it by expanding our educational role. Because of our success with the upper Sacramento project, we’d like to continue exploring cooperative projects. But we must never forget who we speak for: trout.
“PUT ‘EM BACK ALIVE!”
CalTrout on Catch-&-Release Fishing
By following a few simple rules you can be certain that released fish will live to be caught again. Remember that a fish appears unharmed when released may not survive if not carefully handled.
- Time is of the essence. Play and release fish as rapidly as possible. A fish out of water for more than four minutes will suffer brain damage from loss of oxygen. A fish played gently for too long may be too exhausted to recover.
- Keep the fish in the water as much as possible. A fish out of water is suffocating and, in addition, is many times heavier. He may pound himself fatally if allowed to flop on the beach or rocks. Even a few inches of water under a thrashing fish acts as a protective cushion.
- Gentleness in handling is essential. Keep your fingers out of the gills. If you use dry hands, take care not to remove slime or abrade the fish. If wet hands, fight your tendency to squeeze the fish for control. Small fish are best handled by thumb and forefinger on the lower lip. Nets of (wet) soft cotton are helpful provided the mesh does not become entangled in the gills. Nylon abrades. Hooks and lines catching in nets may delay releasing, so keep the net in the water.
- Unhooking: Remover the hook as rapidly as possible with long-nosed pliers or forceps unless the fish is deeply hooked. If deeply hooked, cut the leader and leave the hook in; it will eventually dissolve. Do not tear out hooks roughly. Be gentle and quick. Small fish, especially, may die of shock from rough handling.
- Reviving: Some fish, especially after a long struggle, may lose consciousness and float belly-up. Always hold the fish in the water upright, heading upstream. Move the fish forward and backward so that water runs through the gills. This is artificial respiration and may take a few minutes, especially in lakes. When it revives, begins to struggle and swim normally, then release it to survive and challenge another fisherman.
- Stop fishing: Trout do not survive very well when caught and released in warmer waters. Carry a thermometer. When 68 degrees F and above, consider calling it a day, or wait for cooler evening temperatures. At least use heavier tippets, play fast, and revive fish with extra care.
