Quote:
Originally Posted by walking buffalo
What would cause the Elbow to be nutrient poor now compared to historical levels?
I suspect the Elbow is simply suffering from over harvest and degradation/loss of tributary habitat.
And of course the continuous stocking of many farmed fish hasn't helped.
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I see the nutrient load in mountain streams to be a cummulation over thousands of years as it doesn't see salmon spawning and dying and historically animal inputs was not common ie cow and people were not around ie sewage.
So then take the last 100-200 years. People have been harvesting like crazy with no replacement. How many thousands of pounds get removed from the nutrient cycle? Large bull trout, whitefish, cutthroats.
So today can fish really re-establish number and size back to historical proportions in 10 years...25 years...100 years...1000 years. I don't know. The Bow and Crowsnest were fisheries were built on sewage and sustained significant harvest.
I am not completely advocating spiking the creeks with nitrogen etc...however... it would be an interesting experiment.
I feel the upper Elbow would benefit from a nutrient source. Can't over do it however there could be a balance or some short term shots to the nutrient cycle to give it a boast so as to supporting more and bigger fish.