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Rural System? Just Dreaming …
A For-Profit Conglomerate for
Meaningful Jobs
Healthful Communities
and Improved Natural Resource Management
by Robert H. Giles, Jr., Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia
2007
Chapter 22. Just Fish
Dreaming: Reflection…I worked hard in a limited field and probably poorly served my children and my wife and village; …Reflection on reflection…I did not purposely make a bad decision …or work to get even … for spite, or…at something illegal. Reflection on reflection on reflection…How very limited we all are… at least this one. Get to work! Serve! …Reflectless. Just dreaming…
| This chapter describes The Fishery enterprise as it might have been. The enterprise does not exist but work continues toward its creation and influences. |
People doing "wildlife management" and working to increase populations of game birds are said to work to improve their habitat and they often strive to make plantings of fruit- and grain-producing plants. They are feeding the birds by fairly natural and dispersed techniques rather than at "feeders." There are many other forms of wildlife and some do not eat seeds. Many eat fish (e.g., birds such as eagles, herons, and ducks; otters; bears; mink) but the literature is sparse on managing fish for terrestrial wildlife. There are evident paired systems such as those of beaver-built ponds and studies of predators of fish commercially raised for human food. There are many difficulties in providing food and cover for large land animals requiring water in their lives that are under ground, under water, and out after dark. These management requirements have been too challenging, unrecognized, or within some realm not defined as wildlife management. There's a small problem, a "disconnect." Half of the large terrestrial wildlife in Virginia (as an example), require water (other than for drinking) in their life history. These include the amphibians, the ducks, muskrats, etc. There are untold insect and small species, many of which have an aquatic life stage or requirements. Are these not "wildlife" and why does wildlife management rarely include fisheries and their management? Our words serve us poorly.
There is much discussion about the meaning of the words fishery, fisheries, fish management, and fisheries management. Rural System staff (herein "we") began talking about "the fishery" years ago and soon realized that its meaning was unknown, perhaps unimagined. Words with "fish" in them seem to connote stocking fish. We began working on a concept that was more than stocking fish or just 'fishin.' We began developing a whole subsystem within Rural System to produce an array of specified potential human benefits from fish populations and things related to them and their place. We had barely begun our work when we realized that we must actively involve Marketing, Ranging, and Nature Folks groups, and along with everyone, Q Works and the Land Force. We saw that the Fishery could only be developed for efficiency, synergism, and profitability within the context of the Rural System. Our work was as much with the social dimensions of ecotourism and outdoor recreation as with fish and their food.
Our experience had been that the "total system" concept is not widely understood and we knew that advancing it and its implications was part of the Rural System concept. "Stocking fish" or "setting seasons" are such trivial ideas in the context of the above that they hardly need more than a second thought. It was not a "fish" system even though that word is in the title. Fish are like footballs (Chapter 1) and while essential, almost irrelevant. The emphasis on numbers, size, and weight in the past (and regrettably, probably for the near future) has been greatly out of proportion to their significance.
We tried through several meetings but could not resolve the problem of fishery definitions but moved ahead with the leadership of Rural System's major premise. We just need to manage an important natural resource system, not just for the fish, not just for the lakes, ponds, and streams, but for increasing the number and quality of perceived human benefits. We knew the many constraints to management action but had had many discussions about "sustained bounded profits" from the total benefit system. Our "fish" system included soil, water, economics, and other topics.
We had a huge potential market and we knew that when we had built the system where we were, then we would create sister functioning entities elsewhere in the world. We were already corresponding with a colleague in India, another in Kansas. There are many groups of people with at least one interest (actual or potential) in one or more parts of the aquatic and near-aquatic system. There are many absentee private landowners who want help in managing their waters, especially as such actions enhance land value and may provide financial gains. Our work was exclusively on "inland fisheries" (differing greatly from oceanic and Great Lakes commercial work). We were still hampered by the public view that all things related to fish were governmental, free, and a recreational or seasonal pastime. We were still selling land owners about their needs and opportunities and also describing to them our relatively new, imaginative system.
At the same time we began experiencing competition. We often said that the old ways of doing fisheries work was the major competitor because for every activity or service there seemed to be a look-alike. The state agency seemed to feel threatened for they purported to help private landowners. University graduates that they hired for fisheries work had been educated for government work. They did not have an entrepreneurial spirit or attitude and were defensive, generally negative. The staff, though expert, was inadequate for the task that we could readily outline. They seemed unsure of funding that could sustain their work. We tended to see only the potentials of the hundreds of ponds and tributaries in need of service and the state agency did not have the time to analyze needs and prepare plans. Owners expected from them free services (and the same from us) and there is now little of that for such work.
Competition is not something that simply happens to an enterprise (or a pond fish). It requires reprisal. Otherwise there is weakness or major losses … or partnerships can be formed resulting in mutual gains. There are many individuals specializing in some of the above listed activities. They are financially unstable, and unsustained. There are several consulting firms dealing with pond and lake work, namely algae problems, and we were not interested in competition but profitable affiliations. We think that we are and can remain competitive by early work, computer-aided efficiencies, using GIS, using current knowledge of research underway, rapid integrating that result into our programs, and continually revising and improving our services. We were never sure that we had the resources or that our strategies would work against the next competitive attack.
The Changing Demand
We knew, based on approximations from government records that in the U.S. there are 50 million anglers and that they are increasing. From 1980 to 2000 the increase was from 422 million occasions of participation (days fishing) to521 million. Doing this, anglers spend $24 billion. Half of these expenditures were trip related, $3.7 billion equipment related, and $5 billion boat related. All of this action generates $20 billion in worker earnings and supports over 900,000 full-time-equivalent jobs. There are few regional numbers available but the scope and magnitude were consistent with our observations. About 20 percent of the adult population said that they do some type of angling. Angling is not the business we were developing but an ever-expanding array of "products, services, events, opportunities, information, ideas, inspiration, memberships, and memories," the benefits list that kept showing up in Rural System brochures.
Some of us seemed to "see the glass as half empty" but together we were convinced from our personal observations that public waters, with limited management, cannot supply a sufficient quality of the apparently desired amount of angling. We also knew that more that just pulling fish from water, people seem to enjoy simply knowing that abundant healthy populations of fish exist. Currently-available governmental assistance is not up to the tasks of assisting private landowners with these topics or dealing with new alternatives … and assistance is shrinking. We knew that near to where we were working in Virginia there are 70,000 ponds, most of them government-funded on private lands. They were built over the past 40 years. Most of these have not had management and some were functionless eyesores, evaporating surfaces, stream impediments, and habitats for disease vectors. To us they represented a resource to be developed for the fishery and for related real-estate-value enhancement.(The many other values did not have to be listed.)
We had discussed the potentials of The Fishery for over a year. We had seen the needs and potentials like a deep coal seam of the region. The Fishery was an untouched resource that has been mined only at the surface. It has great potentials for profit as well as for secondary benefits from employment and community stability to the region and the state. Its activities were of a type and scope that fell outside the normal operating procedures of district fish division personnel of most state departments of wildlife. The agency staffs were not educated for our disparate private resource role. We knew that in only a few university programs of study for wildlife specialists students were required to enroll in a "fish course," even one on watershed management. Advanced or micro-economic economic courses were rarely required. Appeals to ecosystem management and the rhetoric of unified and total systems have been too weak to inspire integrating the fauna of wet areas with those of dry areas of the working platform of the private ownership.
We had brought 50 ponds from those scattered by the hundreds nearby into our single managed system. These ponds had been built with subsidy by the federal government. Most have been unattended since owners' interests in early angling success have waned. All were under utilized for angling, but knowing that was only to display that the potential of The Fishery had been missed.
The Intrinsic Needs
We had discussed and unified our thoughts about the needs for widespread and comprehensive management of the fish resources. We knew that the needs were poorly seen and that that partially explained why the entrepreneurial potentials were unseen. We were facing urbanization, increased family economic pressures, new needs for recreation, and few well-known active land and water management services for private land owners. We could list more than imaginary and academic needs for creating and managing water- and fish-related resources on private lands. There were some bad environmental conditions such as high insecticide levels, excessive silt and turbidity levels, and great changes in water quality and depths. Thoughtful people all knew that these can prevent native fish reproduction. As water quality declined, public waters with their scant management could not supply needed angling. Urban dweller can no longer gain timely access to angling opportunities. After October, 1999, we circulated a copy of a Conservation Biology article that said that freshwater species are dying out as fast as those are in the rainforests. Since 1900 at least 123 species have been lost from North American waters and the study predicted a continuing loss of about 4% of the remaining total every decade, unless the trend is arrested. We saw those losses as part of our challenge and a major need for our work. Others had told us that almost half of all freshwater mussels, a third of the crayfish, a quarter of the amphibians, and a fifth of the fish could die out by 2100. We created The Fishery to show the full potentials of private inland fish-related resource management, and that included sustained, bounded profit from the restoration, enhancement, and management of that diverse resource.
The Profit Emphasis
We had an unwritten mental model that was for us straight forward … people invest money in land or hold it (from various past investments). They must continue to invest (taxes, portfolio betterment, etc.) or lose it. A pond or lake may be non productive, even seen as a financial loss (since the same land that is under water might be producing crops, livestock, etc.). Pollution is personally intolerable to the average land owner (health costs and risks) and likely to be socially intolerable (morally wrong but at least risking ground water and related harm to others, including costs of legal action). Ponds and lakes fill with silt from the sides and that is a real above-lake land-value loss (topsoil). The infilling is also dam-value depreciation since the dam looses its water-holding function. Profits can be made directly from clean, local fish sales to restaurants but they can also be made from sales of angling (and all imagined and implemented aspects). The real gains can be made from related services and functions. (We had a list of over 50, Table 1). Profits do not have to come directly from the water or some swimming creatures. Profits can be counted from value-added roles such as real-estate value increasing from the presence of a pond or lake (not just "any old pond" but a managed beautiful, profitable one). Similar value can typically be added from waterfowl observation or hunting resulting from a managed lake being present. Extra financial gains can be made from proportionate contributions
| Table 1. Programs, activities, services and media in the income-flow stream produced by The Fisheries. Some are operated entirely within the Group. Others are negotiated arrangements with specialists, consultants, and affiliates. |
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1. Fee-fishing program 2. Guided and catered fishing events 3. Pond reclamation and fertilization 4. Public water and company fishing maps 5. Pond construction 6. Stream and river monitoring and analyses 7. Stream restoration 8. Riparian restoration 9. Pond and lake baseline studies for legal protection 10. Regional Landsat pond and lake surveys 11. Computer-aided pond and watershed analyses (e.g., see the following computer-produced map showing probable site specific monthly precipitation and temperature (October) essential in watershed analyses and ecosystem work.) 12. Computer systems marketing (systems to help optimize pond and stream design and management) 13. Surface and ground water chemistry analyses 14. Algae and fish raw materials for Alpha Earth 15. Water budgets for farms 16. Wilderness stream tours 17. Specialized photographer opportunities 18. Fish photos and photo books 19. Education units (computer-aided instruction) 20. Superior fishing day analyses and reports 21. Guided fish and fishing-related tours (regional, national, and international) 22. Native fish-watching sport promotion 23. Life-list building groups and activities (for native fish as well as international projects) 24. Native pet fish business 25. Fishing tournaments 26. Casting tournaments 27. Fishing equipment sale 28. Caged fish production (including cage sales) 29. Pond, lake, and stream security analyses and projects 30. Stream and fish-related art (contests, sales, publications) 31. Magazine sales 32. Lectures 33. Honoraria, contributions, and tax-related reductions 34. Stream and river patrons organization 35. Stream and river-reach baseline monitoring 36. Insect identification (aquatics and fish food; see The Butterfly Band) 37. Stream analysis education kits 38. Boat sales (potentially including a locally-built boat) 39. Regional "fish-feed" carnival 40. Certified-clean supply line for local catch-of-the-day for restaurants 41. Gourmet fish sale 42. Bait and specialized lure sales 43. Workshops and conferences 44. Insurance (angler, land owner, boats, equipment) 45. Grants and contracts for research and studies 46. Scientific report sales 47. Algae harvest for domestic animals 48. Nature study area design advice 49. Bridges, fence crossings, and culverts (consulting as well as contractual work) 50. Acid rain monitoring 51. Trout-beaver interaction planning and beaver pest damage reduction 52. Mollusk inventories 53. Planting stock (nursery) sale for riparian areas 54. Analyzing pond and lake site suitability 55. Promoting improved care, processing, and consumption of fish (menus, etc.) 56. Assisting but not competing in Bass tournaments. |
We had to create a comprehensive fishery, a modern, sophisticated regional freshwater system with diverse activities that are as interlocked and overlapping other groups of Rural System. We had to work among:
We knew from economic and ecological reasoning that we had to diversify to achieve stability. Rural System was already diversified, but we had to do it internally. We used the resources of the greater System (e.g., accounting, inventory, personnel) but used our own computer for allocating efforts optimally. We had very small capital investment needs, working on Tracts under contract or to serve individual landowner customers. Our products and services were sold via many agricultural and sporting good outlets and the e-catalog, Rural System's "Country Store." We concentrated first on long-term sustained profits, second on enhancing land productivity and human well being to assure those profits. It was a shifting priority.
Based on staff experience, abilities and interests, we held the following major program or project categories for on-going tasks:
The Real Action
People kept asking us what we did, even after we made many efforts to tell them. Some of the things were known by fisheries experts but few were known by the general public or landowners. Our new private profit orientation and long list of activities made The Fishery very new.
What we really did was to make money and share it with land owners. They got many other perceived benefits of scenery, social involvement, and pride of ownership already discussed. They got "future money" in a report of the expected real estate value change resulting from (1) pond management, (2) Rural System management, and (3) active Rural System "presence" within the region. The Fishery used owners' land to produce financial gains. It used some funds to enhance pond and lake production of fish but also to improve conditions for high human benefits (e.g., signs, service areas, access) and to enhanced land value. Allocating these "profits" was computer-aided and based on the total acres and pond acres and the quality of both.
We worked to increase perceived angler benefits, the easily-expressed "great day of fishing" more than to increase number of fish or their size. We could partition subsets of anglers' expectations to specific ponds and areas for desired fish and the anglers' expressions of success. We were almost always trying to reduce the difference between their expectations and their achievements. Of course we used the rich literature and experience of experts and established ways to manipulate fish numbers and sizes but used them in previously unknown site-specific ways. Our computer models worked well, especially on data about our waters and their surrounding lands, all within our elaborate computer mapping system. We had at our finger tips information on an almost-endless array of factors that could be changed to enhance fish numbers and quality. Not surprising, our work with the Forestry Group and the Pasture and Rangeland Group was responsible for preventing problems and achieving desired inflows. We supervised building a few ponds, developed new clean water inputs, monitored conditions and user success, enforced the law and Rural System rules, and made regular reports to the land owner. Within our group we had knowledge for controlling fish populations, waters and watersheds, landscape quality effects of pond and lake presence, boating effects, equipment for our use, product and publication sales, user education, and a host of administrative affairs.
We prepared requests for proposals that we sent to local universities on how to arrive at a specific answer to a question or problem. We wrote too many letters to academicians explaining that we were not a general or basic-research-funding group but we were eager to apply knowledge, the results of research, not to do it. We knew that existing fisheries research centers were not likely to be surpassed and that work such as proposed here, synthesizing and moving the incredibly large and complex literature from these centers to computer models and into The Trevey to make it work on the land and in the waters of the Tracts was a large enough task. Studies that we did were, as in any corporation, proprietary. We supervised several people studying the costs of production, habitats, and the effects of logging and mining on benefits (not on the ponds themselves).
We saw the lakes, ponds, and streams in the area as part of The Fishery. We were a total enterprise, a system producing recreation, employment, profits, protecting the resource, improving their productivity, managing angler levels, conducting tours, and assuring the total angling experience from planning before a person arrives at one of the Rural System Tracts through to reflecting on their experiences afterwards.
We had computer maps of the ponds of our region using GIS. We isolated those on richest soil, near roads, and likely to enhance scenic areas. We avoided known polluted areas. We already had information on ponds and lakes of Rural System Tracts. We then got government records of funded ponds and the addresses of owners to sell them our services. Membership work with Anglers (our new organization) was a major marketing activity. Work with scouts and 4-H was a similar extended strategy. We sponsored tournaments and displayed there our publications, products and services. Over a third of our work arose from referrals made by staff of other groups of Rural System.
Our marketing was conventional - we announced hires, submitted articles on fishing, and advertised in local newspapers and TV spots. We worked through local sportsperson clubs with speeches and displays at meetings. Hardly a "uniform," we wore similar clothing and our signs and vehicle emblem gave some name recognition. We worked through scouts, nature clubs, and birding clubs for tours. We worked with wilderness groups for stream and lake border tours and birding events. We had good relations with Trout Unlimited and various lake, river, and watershed organizations.
Analyses
Our work on each pond was often "a show" and well attended. Our small boat was attractive and had many flags. It was easily-handled and moved across each pond, recording water depths and underwater objects like boulders and trees with sonar instruments at GPS coordinates. These were broadcast to shore for the visitors to see. Staff on the boat used GPS for accurate locations, and electronic range finders to get distances to boundary edges. Water temperatures, pH, conductivity, and turbidity were all are recorded at known points and new maps of each factor and special combinations are made. The many columns of the pond, like other alpha units, were all considered unique. Each water column was viewed as seasonally unique. Shadows cast by trees and ridges were recorded to give new energy-budget insights into the pond and its net primary production potentials. Its specific location and surface area were fundamental to understanding and influencing all of the factors of system and the fish populations…but also the actual and potential users…who also were always changing.
We loaded data from each pond into a computer on the site, sent it to our office and there basic descriptive programs were run and colored maps were then printed a few minutes later on site from our van to the typical amazement of on-lookers. (They wanted to see what was near the place they had caught a big fish or wanted to select the next fishing place.) Our pond models now reflect rational robustness and we used heuristic approaches, a reasonable confidence level, a reasonable standard of accuracy, conditional standards, and sets of likely outcomes. We already had in our computer knowledge about solar radiation, surface geology, lunar forces, and climatic factors. We knew how dynamic ponds were, so we knew that data taken on any day may not be like those conditions tomorrow. Owners and anglers' values change as surely as the ponds themselves.
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Our computer capabilities, shared with other Groups, gave us the ability to describe each water volume, to make relationships, to tie them to other resource interests, and to make analyses of the data collected rapidly so that information could be delivered before land owners and their managers had to make pond- and stream-management decisions. We were working on near-immediate responses after data collection, and using continually updated models (one slogan: "data to information to models to decisions"). The responses came as paper reports printed from pages of the Internet. They were secure documents but available to authorized land owners, managers, and Fisheries staff. These were documents similar to those of The Trevey, the dynamic planning system described in Chapter 19, and were specialized "plans" for ponds. We knew our reports were unique for each pond even though produced from a singular system. More limited than The Trevey, we still fully expected to make innovations that would, over time, inform The Trevey and their "somewhat-superior" staff.
Timely Work
We got started a few years ago. We believed that we would have to use hatchery fish to sustain fish populations for angling in quality waters. We knew that this would become increasingly more important. We also knew that fish must be placed in quality waters and used by appreciative, responsible anglers. The needs for three times more such fish than that were now available was also recognized. Hatcheries were closing and new hatcheries were not being built. We saw this as one sign of a major timely opportunity for The Fishery. Stocking fish and catching them again has not been the stuff of major profits or sustained pressure for land and water enhancement. Even 100 pounds of fish per acre per year can hardly be adequately appealing. (We knew our potential of 700 pounds, but even at $5 a pound, a small pound cannot contribute much to the family budget.) We had to invent ourselves.
We conceived of a managed income flow from the work of an industrious, gains-oriented, service-producing staff. We started with people with fisheries as a vocation. We had a list (Table 1) of activities and products. The notable dimensions of that list are its large number, that some items are seasonal, some require years to materialize, all require specialized marketing and advertising, and that while all have been tried, few have succeeded because they were not conducted within a larger system, within Rural System. The success of each has varied, especially in our start-up period, and, frankly, reflected the personality of the staff involved more than the local markets and current demands.
The following were the strategic and tactical dimensions of our Fishery:
Anglers
We created the Anglers, a group with each member seeking progress along 10 steps or stages of angling competence. We collected membership fees and in turn gave reductions in fees and "deals" on other aspects of products and services of The Fishery. All group activities were pushing toward high knowledge of fisheries, fishing efficiency, care of the land, fishing ethics, ecology, camping, woodcraft, fish life history, fish identification etc. This is not a meeting-oriented group (though we held an annual convention) or politically oriented group. It helped provide a mailing list, outreach, new memberships, fee promotion, and name/brand recognition (hats, badges, car stickers, T-shirts, boat stickers etc.). The membership fees provided modest income but created a special market to which we could offer information about fish, the fish resource, and the many potentials of Rural System. Importantly, it put a significant number of well-informed, resource users out on the land. It helped sponsor a special program for attracting and supporting female anglers.
In some ponds, complete removal of fish was required because there are too many fish, all of stunted growth. Removals are carefully made combined with vegetation management, structural changes, and fertilization. Select species are restocked that are known to meet the needs of the Rural System users. Regulations for removing fish are enforced but increasingly, the members-only pond users are now well-informed, understand the rationale for encouraging or discouraging the taking of certain fish, and are given reports that provide the essential feedback (otherwise unavailable in public waters) that following the regulations "works" and is worth the constrains on their behavior.
In some ponds we raised caged fish. These were carefully monitored for substances likely to find their way into fish flesh. These includes mercury, arsenic, persistent organic compounds such as dioxins and PCBs and or residues of antibiotics and hormones used on animals in the drainage. Marketing documents explained the nature of toxicants and their potential harm when ingested over a long time. Work on cleaning the water, monitoring, and education about efforts to achieve very high levels of consumer protection together enabled the fish sold to be highly prized.
PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has initiated projects to reduce perceptions of pain and suffering of fish. We initiated work with them to draft a policy likely to be acceptable.
Tours
Tours for Anglers have been very popular and a major source of funds. We've developed tours for members, local, national and international. We encouraged taking pictures and story telling to enhance trip memories. We've developed a specialized local staff to advertise and get corporate decision makers and natural resource managers in on highly efficient, clearly cost-effective, 2- and 3-day intensive sessions on the full meaning of a fishery. At respectable fees, groups can be brought to and housed in or near tract facilities, taught actively in-doors, and then taken on bus tours of ponds and streams to maximize learning, i.e., significantly changed behavior per dollar of their investment. Contacts for later service are an evident secondary result.
Events
For members and their guests on one evening each year, we sponsor a special event to observe bats feeding on insects emerging from a spotlight-illuminated platform at pond surface. Bats feed and drink water on the wing. The evening lecture along with the natural spectacle and social event is marketed for others and we make good financial gains for the pond owner as well as Rural System.
We have sponsored annual Angler's conferences and the expertise we developed has been useful to other Groups that also sponsor conferences. A variety of other events are catered, anglers are guided, tournaments are advertised and supervised, safety and first aid sessions are conducted, and equipment and supplies are sold. Photographs of all aspects of the fishery are encouraged and contests are held. The Sculptors Group developed for sale several unique casting plugs and often had special fishing-related contests for carved art pieces.
Life List
We hired a colleague to start a new program of native fish observation, one of building a "life list" (like bird watchers do in order to see all of the more than 30 species of local native fish). Serious birders will fly around the world to get one or two additions to their life list. Fish life lists are almost unknown. There is a rich fish fauna in the area. We have begun to emphasize this new sport of fish life-list building, provide publications and aids, help introduce it in the region, and sell opportunities to gain, for example, 3 new species in that stream, 2 new ones in this stream, 1 in that pond.
We think this is a winner, a new nature sport created on Rural System tract waters. Obvious candidates may be Anglers (but they should be a separate program). We've prepared draft rules and applied for legal protection. A request has been sent to the state requesting exceptions for selectively seining for a new minnow and for temporarily observing such fish by members in this group of life-list builders. Computer records are maintained; a newsletter announces new leaders in the list; notices given about where new species can be readily gotten; tours taken to allow a bus load of people to get 5-10 new species with one seining or electro-shocking activity. The activity takes patience, skill, study, and dedication, and we have made several useful technologies available for rent or purchase. Uniformed Guides are now available, fulfilling one of Rural System's missions of improving local employment.
Federal staff has expressed to us their concern for potential loss of endangered minnows to observers building their life lists. We have suggested the great economic and political influence of the group, assured practices that will protect the fish, assured stream improvements for such species, and promised assistance in thwarting illegal capture or collecting such fish.
Avi One pond develops an early-morning birding-from-boat "trail" with users treating it much like an Official Avi (bird-golf) course. Similar courses are offered along a winding river.
Livestock
Many of our ponds suffer from poor management of livestock. That allows water to be muddied and banks eroded. Rural System provides options for fenced watering areas through its Fencing and Pasture and Rangeland Group but typically seeks to develop a spring or below-the-dam watering basin. We worked with The Cattle Group to develop modern year-around watering centers.
Brightwaters
Within Brightwaters we market and sell pond and stream-management consulting services to all Rural System Tracts as well as to mining, agricultural, and other firms in the area. The ponds are unique and each, partially by management for species, sizes, and types of fishing, adds to the unique opportunities provided from each pond. These services include permitting and impact procedures, but most simply improve their overall role. Rarely do the ponds approach their potentials. We manage ponds for landowners; charge for fee fishing; supply a percentage of profits to lake owners; diversify fishing opportunities (pricing quality of the experience); and provide employment of several varieties (including inspections and monitoring). We've created several demonstration streams, lakes, and ponds. Klopfer's attached GIS temperature- map (INSERT) suggests the regional analyses that are available, about100 factors about every 10- by 10-meter map cell of the region. Such information gives unsurpassed information for diagnosing and prescribing for waters, fish, and economic success.
Silverwaters
Silverwaters has catered to cold-water fish and their streams and to fly fishing. It works on principles like:
It works closely with the Forest Group and within it emphasizes needs for improving forest roads and protecting riparian areas. It provides a superior guide service, bringing success to serious anglers from all over the world. It has maintained a conspicuous role in local "ecotourism" programs. Most key streams were on state or federal lands and special use permissions were gotten.
Stream Force
We offer a highly efficient local work crew, a "stream attack force" - part of the Land Force - for stream and riparian reclamation in the region. It is augmented in the summer by youths in a low-cost work-camp environment.
Restoration
We've contacted the state judiciary, proposing that we be allowed to manage funds paid by industries in fines resulting from stream pollution. These fines (as Allied Chemical was instructed in a kepone pollution incident in Virginia's James River) could be used for paying local people in supervised inventory systems, monitoring pollutants and coal mining effects, and restoring riparian areas.
Owning a Pond
We have "captured" school children's interests by allowing them to buy a square meter of a lake (allowing them to relate to it personally and, hopefully, for a lifetime). We supply information, conduct tours, and have areas sufficiently pleasant and rewarding that people desire to contribute to its upkeep. Through Anglers and the pond owners we relate people to fish groups, to lakes or streams, to problem areas and we cater to sub-group interests. We use aquaria, glass-bottomed walkways over four lakes to inform as well as to seek personal attachment to The Fishery and the work it does. We have sold unique projects to sporting clubs, mostly to encourage personal attachments to ponds and streams. We've gotten pleasant feedback from their naming a stream-side rock-face and a stream reach.
Publications
There are thousands of unpublished and published-but-unused fisheries reports. We have begun securing special groups of these from government sources and publishing them in groups with the "cement" of a computer program showing the practical results of putting several ideas together. These programs can be used on sites with clients, and sold with reports to those interested. The programs will open doors to fees since few owners will want (or have competence) to use the programs delivered. In two cases we have brought noted writers to the area and commissioned specific fisheries papers and lectures, these to be sold. We're considering now employing a staff writer to produce a steady stream of camera-ready, low-cost publications and discs.
Art
We sell from four places in the area fish-related art objects on consignment. We have one sales shop near our office. We also sell a wide variety of products from our Country Story Catalog, an e-catalog. We've commissioned two painters and one sculptor to work on select area topics, become part of our tours, and their objects sold. We think that these objects build nature appreciation and contribute memory-benefits.
Personnel
We've been fortunate to hire several of the best recent graduates of fisheries programs in the country because of our future orientation and salaries. We have had a program (The Line) educating youth from high school onward, and bringing especially-talented ones into educational programs eventually leading to employment with us. Great interest in fishing created a large local employee pool from which we selected experienced people and provided them training quickly. Our program with retired state and federal fisheries staff has brought to us amazing resources and opened new meaningful opportunities for them in their retirement.
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We've made good progress but we have only limited control over pollution (of all kinds) for it can find its way into our waters from the air or groundwater, even if we can gain control of it from the surface. Our management is a function of or knowledge and control of a set of factors, but we are perpetually nervous about unprecedented rainfall, earth tremors, and wildfires. We've implemented some control over vandals and poachers who once played their games with us until we included them in our educational programs and got them to display their tricks for a TV show. We employed some of them because they knew the waters and because we countered parts of the game which was to give them status and to deny their family financial plight.
We are now at the stage when we are secure enough in our operations and abilities to deliver quality products on time so that we will encourage Rural System to develop another similar entity in which we can play a major part. We have a region in mind requested by two guests of Anglers members.
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