Dust blown by
the winds carries the demise of the hemlock forests of the Appalachian
range. Tiny parasitic organisms migrate
on the winds, killing their host trees.
Late at night, they can be seen in such concentration that it almost
looks like the small flakes of snow that herald overnight snowfall.
It is
beautiful to watch the wind-borne assault, tragic to watch the huge hemlock
trees sicken, weaken, and die. Yes, the
birth>death>rebirth cycle is part of the biological pattern we all must
follow. But it takes a good deal of
foresight and comprehension when one sees bare branches where hemlock needles
were last year’s residents.
By
definition, rural blight. This blight
extends beyond the human encroachment and the wanton human lack of concern for
the forests and the watersheds.
The streams
that carved the valleys and flood plains were, once, cooler, cleaner, clearer,
and populated by beautiful native brook trout.
They lived in a range from Canada down into Georgia. The streams remain but clean is no longer
applicable in description. Neither is
clear nor cooler. Strip mining for coal
and minerals has brought about major deforestation. With no overhead cover, the creeks and rivers
heat up beyond the temperatures that trout can withstand. As mountainsides and tops are blasted off and
scraped off the earth’s surface the debris chokes watersheds and the
by-products of mining poison the streams.
Who speaks
for the trout? Trout Unlimited
tries. So do other conservation
groups. However, their collective voices
are easily drowned out by the sound of lobbyists dropping money into
re-election war chests. The energy and
mineral companies pay sufficient lip service to conservation to afford them a
presence on the evening news but no more.
Local miners watch the jobs decrease in number and come to the sad
conclusion that food on the table and gasoline in the truck matters more than
clear creeks and fish that might not withstand the next long summer’s drought
anyway.
Beside all
that, trout fishing with those fly rods and feather-wrapped hooks is just something
done by another group of college-educated elitists who try to keep people from
fishing with worms, crickets, and plastic lures that are used by the real
fishermen who drive bass boats and wear logos all over their cloths like NASCAR
drivers. Those guys don’t complain about
hotter water temperatures and lack of clarity in the big oil-sheened impoundments
that they fish.
Elections are
coming around again. The energy
companies are going to be running TV ads in support of their tame
congressmen. The sad truth is that the
energy companies will win. The forests,
the flood plains, the creeks and rivers will lose out to the companies that
destroy mountains for profit. The flora
and fauna that defined a region will vanish.
The people who appreciate it most of all will be set against each other
by propagandists who tell lies for a living.
It is time to
buy new fishing licenses. That small act
of defiance says that once again I’ve place myself in opposition to the soulless
corporations who lay waste to the world.
Who speaks for the trout? What
college-educated, elitist, fly-rod-waving, small – stream- wading, believer in
conservation laws and fish and game regulations speaks for the trout? I do!
No comments:
Post a Comment