California is one of the best fly fishing destinations in the nation, especially with regard to wild trout.
But while climate change continues to reheat our rivers, the pressure increases on California cold water fish.
The phenomenon has an impact on fresh rivers across the country, including the designated “house” of the country for American fly fishing.
“It’s Ground Zero, here. You stand in it,” said Brian Sheppard, fly fishing guide, while he was standing with me in the Historic Beaver Kill river in the New York Catskill mountains.
“It is not really a question of fish. It is actually a question of presenting to people a way that their life can improve, and we try to expose them to the magic of this place so that they save it,” said the guide.
Rivers everywhere are in difficulty. Recent research published in Nature has revealed that 87% of the rivers studied in the United States and Europe warm up, 70% losing oxygen.
“What climate change is that it hires oxygen out of water. This increases the water temperature. And it kills trout,” said Sheppard, adding that he did not know how long he would work as a fly fishing guide.
Sheppard is part of an American fly fishing industry of $ 100 billion, but warming water means fewer fish during the advanced tourism season.
“When they have reached the middle at the 60 range, it becomes a little fatal for trout if you catch them, and nowadays we hit this for two to three months of the year in the middle of the summer,” said Sheppard.
“It’s a very nice place and a really interesting river,” said Jeff Skelding. Skelding is the executive director of the friends of the Upper Delaware River.
He said that fewer fish to catch harm the local economy of fishing tourism.
“If you go to museums here, you will see photos of people catching hundreds and hundreds of stream trout from these streams. This has changed, you are not going to do it,” noted Skelding.
He says that during the generations, the rivers here lost the flow because of the accumulation of sediments and the construction of dams. This leads to standing water – which warms in the sun, as well as fish.
“The problems that these rivers experience are not very different from what we see in many, many other parts of the country,” said Skelding.
To cool the river, the non -profit group of Skelding strives to restore the flow – which will help more than fish.
“All kinds of recreational activities, more and more, support the economies of these communities,” he said.
For Sheppard, it is something worthy of being protected because the evolution of the climate changes its industry.
Experts urge fishermen to take measures to protect fisheries and encourage conservation efforts, in particular by taking measures to reduce the carbon footprint of each individual.
David Schechter
David Schechter is a national environmental correspondent and the host of “On the Dot with David Schechter”, a guided journey to explore how we change the earth and the earth changes us.
