NANFA-- upsetting the ecology

Jay DeLong (thirdwind_at_att.net)
Fri, 6 Oct 2000 14:05:33 -0700

Thinking of how pesticides and other agricultural chemicals are directly and
indirectly killing fishes and making them want to leap from the water
reminds me of behavioral reactions to chemicals I've seen. I think these
fish as a whole must be experiencing Anabantid envy. Some people illegally
dump bleach in the water to drive salmon into nets and/or towards the beach
to catch them. And during my recent visit to Ohio I went to Clifton Gorge
Nature Preserve near Dayton. A sign there mentioned that the Miami Indians
used crushed walnuts or buckeyes (I forget which, maybe neither) or their
hulls to herd fish.

A few years ago, a biologist on the Skagit River in northern Washington told
me that some salmon which had been spawned and reared in that river weren't
returning to the river as they thought they should. He said that it turned
out that a chemical that had been used to treat dock pilings in the bay
outside of the river's mouth interfered with the homing of the fish before
they left for saltwater as young fish, because they encountered the chemical
in the water at the same time they were imprinting on the river's chemistry.

--
Jay DeLong
Olympia, WA

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