[Don Andersen]

Some further thoughts:

1) Otters and mink maybe a problem. SRD didn't stock Otters into west central Alberta till <> 1990. I've seen mink and would expect that they are nothing new and their effect may have constant.

2) wading in the stream will always cause redd issues however the wading was done a lot for the past 40 years. There was an increase in pops from 1970>1985 when it started to drop to what is found today.

3) what you an do is push SRD to identify the problem and cure it.

4) Rainbows existed in the lower reaches of Stauffer for years. They didn't make it. Rainbows have been stocked all over the place. Clearwater & Cow creek come to mind but they are gone much like Stauffer result.


5) curiously we or least I have always been told the habitat was the limiting factor. In Stauffer's case. The habitat is considerably better from 1970>present.

6) Ah ha, the Great Blame It all on the BROOKIES. Yupe, browns and BROOKIES do inter-breed. There has been 3 Brookie/brown hybrids ever found in Alberta. A very rare occurrance.
Fish eat eggs. You bet they do. All the ones that are free floating away from the redds. These eggs are dead - who cares.

7) beaver dams are always an issue on Stauffer. Prior to the work done by SRD in the early 1970's,there was minimal dam removal. Some had been in the same locations for many years. SRD blew them a maintained some of them for a while. In early 1980's the Central Ab TU Chapter took on beaver management. The first year nearly 20 dams were removed. The management of dams has been handled since them by TU except for several years when the ACA was responsible who proved incompetent. What is very obvious, beavers need managed.

8) What must be understood is that if this is happening here, what about all the other streams out there where population runs are not done, cattle trample everything, quads run up and down and frankly nobody pays much attention too. This creek is a spring creek with no floods, decent water temperatures and on and on. I suspect the rest of the Central Alberta streams are suffering similar fates. Do I have proof - nope. Not like I have for Stauffer.

NOTE: the above comments are thoughts mixed with a few facts - the original report is as close as I can get to facts. There is a whole lot of difference between I think and I know.


Don