A move by the N.C. Wildlife Commission to tighten oversight on who can release fish into rivers, creeks and ponds will end the current free-for-all by implementing a permit system aimed at protecting native species and ecosystems.

Homeowners endowing their backyard creeks with trout, developers outfitting subdivision ponds with ornamental goldfish, campgrounds stocking catch-out ponds and sport fishing clubs stocking rivers with trophy trout will all be required to obtain permits before dumping fish into public waters.

The extra layer of bureaucracy is widely welcomed by most fisherman.

Tom Massie, a Jackson County fisherman, said it is high-time the state started tracking private stocking.

“They need to know what’s being stocked and who’s stocking it and that there’s not troublesome fish being introduced,” Massie said. “Look what’s happened in the Chesapeake with the snakehead.”

The loathed snakehead is a vicious Chinese fish that has made its way into American waterways due to careless humans. It eats fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and even small mammals. While the snakehead was deemed by Secretary of Interior Gale Norton “something out of a bad horror movie,” fishery biologists hold an equal fear of the unknown, potentially graver threats lurking under the radar.

“Look at the total annihilation of our American Chestnuts due to a blight that was brought over on imported trees. We’re trying to guard against anything like that happening in the aquatic realm,” said Scott Loftus, fishery biologist for the 12 western counties with the Wildlife Commission.

It is doubtful that a permit system can stop the introduction of all undesirables in the aquatic ecosystem, especially the threats posed by ignorant homeowners dumping aquariums. Aquariums are host not only to dangerous fish, but also to viruses and bacteria, algae and aquatic plants that can choke out oxygen and even non-native aquarium snails that can edge out native snails.

“We want to have a rule out there that says you can’t just go out and get non-native fish and put them in public waters. We need some way to approach someone and say what you have done is illegal,” said Carl Kittel, Wildlife Commission cold water fishery specialist.

Kittel was on the Non-Native Species Introduction Committee that developed the rule over the course of 2004.

One impetus behind the rule is the introduction of river herring bait fish into mountain lakes and possibly rivers. Fishermen who use herrings as bait sometimes dump what they haven’t used into the lake at the end of the day.

Kittel has been tracking impacts of the river herring in Lake Hiwasee for the past few years and discovered a “serious reduction in walleye reproduction” that Kittel believes is a result of the growing herring population.

“Ecosystems are complex and developed over a long period. You don’t want to be mixing and matching species all the time,” Kittel said.

The proposed new law is currently going through the required rounds of public comment and will not be implemented until this summer.

“I think the serious-minded fisherman, and the wild trout people, and the environmental people will support it,” said Bobby Setzer, a Jackson County fisherman and the former Western Carolina University football coach. Setzer represents the 12 western counties on N.C. Wildlife Commission board.

Save the brookies

One reason there is local support for the rule is the long-standing rallying cry to save native brook trout. Native brook trout — edged out by rainbow and brown trout species — have relatively few strongholds and are relegated to the narrower, higher elevation creeks.

“People moving into one of these houses on a mountainside might say, ‘Hey, I have this stream behind my house and I need some trout in it.’ People think: mountains ... creek ... trout,” Loftus said. The Wildlife Commission has mapped areas known to contain naturally reproducing native brook trout populations and would deny permits for stocking of other trout species in these special waters.

Tom Ort, fishery manager for Tellico Trout Hatchery in Cherokee County, hatches and sells more than 2 million live trout a year, most of which are for stocking. While Ort’s North Carolina customers will now have an extra layer of red tape, Ort supports the move if it will protect wild populations of aquatic critters and their gene pool.

Domesticated trout raised in hatcheries lack a diverse gene pool, making them less resilient. Wild populations adapt to changing conditions, relying on recessive traits if those suddenly becomes necessary.

“The reason God has it set up like this is that as the environment changes, they have the tools in the diversity in their gene base to change,” Ort said. While people can never restore the native ecosystem, every effort should be made to protect the streams that are still pure.

“Before we understood good biosecurity the horse was let out of the barn,” Ort said.

Trophy trout stockers

Tellico is the largest private trout operation on the east coast. Ort’s biggest business is trout farms who buy loads of fingerlings and state fisheries — namely Pennsylvania and Delaware — that have found contracting with Ort more efficient than raising their own trout stock. But his most rapidly growing sector is private stocking of rivers for sportsmen clubs.

Ort hauls semi-trucks of trophy trout — weighing up to 12 pounds and 30 inches long — from Georgia to New York to stock rivers used by fishing clubs and commercial sport fishing operations.

One of Ort’s customers was John McGrew, who stocked a section of the Tuckasegee in Jackson County for a sport fishing camp. McGrew had dreams of creating a trophy trout water out of a portion of the Tuck.

Currently, the Tuck is managed by the Wildlife Commission as a “put and take” fishery — the Wildlife Commission puts them in and the public fishes them out. Trout in the Tuck rarely remain long enough to reach “trophy” size, which would lure sport fishermen, so McGrew stocked and fed trout in his section of the Tuck. McGrew, one of the only individuals stocking for sport fishing purposes in the region, said he would gladly welcome a permit system.

“You don’t just want everybody to throw fish in the river. There is a lot of validity to controlling that,” McGrew said.

Self-contained ponds are exempt from the permit system. A self-contained pond is either man-made or fed by a spring from below the surface, or it can be filled by water diverted from a creek and there is no direct ingress and egress from the pond to the creek. If water flows into a pond from an external source or flows out the other side, it is considered public waters.