Orvis, Conservation Partners Protest Batten Kill Stocking Plan

Orvis, which has been active in Battenkill restoration for many years, announced on Monday that if Vermont’s Fish and Wildlife Department goes ahead with its plan to stock the river with rainbows, it will cease raising funds for Batten Kill conservation work. “The 1,000 or so rainbow trout the state is considering releasing into the Battenkill would also provide more competition for the native brown trout for feeding, undermining efforts to rebuild their population through habitat restoration, said said Bill Bullock, the Director of the American Fly Fishing Museum and a member of Trout Unlimited and the Battenkill Watershed alliance.” Andrew McKeever in the Bennington Banner.
Vermont public radio also did a podcast on the story, which you can listen to here. Perk Perkins: “There are rivers that can’t reproduce they don’t have the spawning habitat. They just can’t sustain a wild trout population. But here we have one of five rivers left in the entire state that have wild trout. And we need to protect that.”