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[RC] Cutting Fence can cost all of use trails! - Steven ProeHorse-riding vandals ruin hatchery eggs By Christine Vovakes BEE CORRESPONDENT SISKIYOU COUNTY - Horseback-riding vandals cut fences protecting pristine mountain water that funnels into Mount Shasta Fish 'Hatchery, trampled through streambeds and sent a flood of silt into incubators where more than a half-million brown trout eggs died. The vandalism forced hatchery crews to re-sort to an old-fashioned, labor-intensive incubation method to continue the annual production of 11 million eggs, said Stephen Sanders, manager of the state Department of Fish and Game hatchery. "The eggs were completely silted in. We had a 100 percent loss," he said. "The lucky part is that we're still spawning. They were the first batch." Last year, hatchery workers noticed that horse riders were getting into streambeds and creating erosion. Crews repaired existing fences and erected several new ones. "People came through and cut every single one we put up," he said. "Sounds like someone was really upset with us for putting up the fencing. Officials suspect the vandalism happened the first week of January when heavy rains turned the damaged creek banks into cascading silt. Since eggs can't be checked during the first 30 days of the incubation process, workers couldn't confirm the deadly toll until this week, Sanders said. A conservation crew is expected to begin re-pairs Monday. In the meantime, hatchery workers are incubating eggs in baskets made of woven mesh screens and set into troughs where water filters through them. The labor-intensive process takes up more space and is less efficient, officials said. Calling the actions "very willful, vandal-ism," Sanders said the perpetrators "may not have understood the potential damage to the fish, but they did understand what they were doing to the fences." The incident is being investigated by the Siskiyou County Sheriff's Department, said spokeswoman Susan Gravenkamp. Bill Tate, a local outdoor columnist and owner of Dunsmuir Fly Fishing Co., surveyed the damage. "It's just a shame," he said. "It's just vandal-ism to serve someone's personal pleasure." Whoever pulled the fence posts out and cut the wire so horses could trample through streambeds might have thought they were only doing a little damage to the stream, he said, "but the consequences are a lot larger than they appear on the surface. =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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