Go Back

Trucks roared by one the highway as I traversed the brushy riparian zone of a small wild trout stream. The landscape I was in was heavily altered, to my eye. But if it weren't for that road perpetual road noise someone else may not recognize the signs of human interruption. Many haven't trained themselves to understand the unnatural landscape, and some signs are more subtle than others. I wasn't in a city or even a suburb, I was in the woods. A place many might call "out in nature". But there was actually very little in front of me that was indeed natural. 

Dropping down a steep bank, I looked up and down a straight course of the stream. Along one bank was broken rock, rock which didn't match the native granite and gneiss. This black and fine grained basalt, a volcanic remnant that looks the part, had likely been quarried from one of the ridges in Central or Western Connecticut or possibly even Massachusetts. It was broken free with the help of explosives then trucked to this place and used to try to make a stream do what some people had decided they needed it to do. This stretch had been channelized, making it a straight shot of underwhelming water. Without natural bending and meandering the stream couldn't create deep pools, undercuts, or slowly fell trees into itself. This is all necessary habitat for fish, macroinvertebrates and more. Without it the stream was not only unnatural but much less full of life. I wouldn't catch fish in this section, they weren't there. They weren't there because people had made it unlivable. 

The irony is the fish I was there for was a fish that didn't belong either. Salmo trutta, not in spite of but in fact because of out love for them, are a broadly introduced invasive species that has brought disruption and damage throughout the world. I harbor a similar deep appreciation for brown trout, but unlike others who allow their adoration to cloud their view, I can see the problem at hand. This very stream should be and could be teaming with the native salmonid, Salvelinus fontinalis. But brown trout sometimes have advantage outside of home court and they outnumbered brook trout here. When I reached stretches where the stream took its own course and formed deep cuts and pools I ran into brown trout. These lovely fish had genetic lineage dating back to near their initial introduction. They'd adopted and adapted characteristics that allowed them to survive in this foreign land, and to me they were indeed beautiful creatures.

 As if they weren't there, in just a couple months a truck would pull up to a bridge not far from here and offload a couple hundred horrible facsimiles of these fish. Farm raised and bread, these trout would be ill adept and equipped to survive where they'd be put and in all likelihood none would even survive a whole season. But while they were there they'd do nothing but damage to the wild fish present in the stream, be they native or non-native. Human's had demanded the stream travel a certain course and they demanded not only what sort of fish lived in the stream but how many as well.

I dropped below the channelized stretch a ways, navigating between beech trees and maples, none of them very big or old, and occasionally deviating around a mess of green brier or bittersweet. Even these aspects of the landscape hinted at the anthropogenic alterations. Invasive plants, stunted trees, and unnatural abundances of species denote the post-European New England forest. Old growth is all but non-existent today, as are many of the huge native trees that once characterized and cast wilderness. Of course, the native peoples were making changes too before the white man ever stepped foot here. The natives managed land for their survival, maintaining habitats that favored species they relied on. Europeans had a different outlook: domination. And we did indeed dominate. We used, abused, and replaced. We left a landscape that is lesser, even when we've tried to protect it for the future. It's hard to feel something other than cynicism and apathy once you know just how... wrong, how unfathomably incorrect our people have made all of this landscape. If I could snap my fingers and turn it all back, I would. But I can't. So that leaves those of us who know to take responsibility. It will never be what it was; but those with the eye for human change and alteration, who know the subtle signs of damage, should use their understanding to turn back the clock where possible and preserve with extreme prejudice anywhere that remains somewhat natural. So the next time you go for a walk in the woods or along a stream, try to look at it with a new eye. Ask what's natural and what isn't and consider what could be put back. 

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