Legal lingo stuff.
The big question is... did it work?
Based on other attempts of adding things to the ecosystem to boost one part of it, I would suggest it will be at least another decade or more before one can start to say yes or no. Despite any short term positive results in size and survival numbers of fish that may be attributed to this over the next few years, it will take many more years to truly know all the ramifications .My hope is that they do not see early signs of success as a license to ramp up before knowing what else is happening throughout the ecosystem as a result of their efforts.
Here is a small example of what I refer to. Different in many ways I know ,but I feel it holds enough similarities to be relevant.
http://www.greatcanadianlakes.com/british_columbia/kootenay/eco_page2.htm
i Coppied and pasted the Key paragraph from the above story. What they do not address very well is how many lakes including many from Europe even, that followed this on the same assumptions coming from the early appearance of success.Most if not all suffered the same fate. To my knowlage,Many have since been running lake fertilizing programs in an effort to bolster production of Zoo-Plankton and the likes.I would be curious to learn what the long term results of this effort hase been.
Here is the excerpt none the less:
"Mysid Shrimp Introduction – In 1949, in a well-intentioned but apparently misguided attempt to bolster the flagging Kootenay Lake Gerrard rainbow trout fishery, biologists stocked the Lake with crustaceans known as “mysid shrimp.” The shrimp had been identified as the major food source of large rainbow trout in Alberta’s Waterton Lakes. It was reasoned that the transplanted food source could provide a boost to the Kootenay Lake Gerrards.
About 10 years after the mysid shrimp introduction, during the late 1950’s, sports fishers noticed a sudden surge of trophy-sized kokanee in the West Arm of Kootenay Lake. The salmon were big and plentiful, and for several years, recreational kokanee anglers flocked to lakeside communities such as Balfour, just east of Nelson. Eventually, however, kokanee populations began to decline throughout the Lake, and by 1990, the fish had all but disappeared from the South Arm.
A similar pattern of kokanee surge and decline following mysid introductions in other lakes has led some biologists to speculate that young kokanee – just-hatched alevin and slightly larger fry – are actually competing with the crustaceans for plankton as their essential food source. (The major food source for both young kokanee and mysid shrimp is the zoo-plankton species Daphnia, commonly known as the water flea.) Furthermore, it is a competition in which the crustaceans have the advantage: unlike the kokanee, they feed both day and night, they reproduce more quickly, have few predators, and inhabit different zones of the lake.
Scientists suggest that the cycle which led to the decline of the Kootenay Lake kokanee population may have followed this pattern:
• At first, kokanee size and numbers surged because the large, mature kokanee ate the newly-available mysid shrimp.
• As subsequent generations of kokanee were produced, they had to compete at an early stage for the most critical part of their diet.
• As young kokanee lost ground against the mysid shrimp, and starved or failed to thrive, mature kokanee either reached their lifespan or were fished out.
• Gradually, overall numbers began to decline."