"Restoration is so expensive, and it doesn't get things back to the way they were before," Stranko says. "Once you've lost brook trout in a stream, I don't know how you get them back. You have to make the water cooler, remove the sediment and repair the stream banks. Isn't it cheaper to do conservation?"
For starters, perhaps the O'Malley administration could divert some of the Program Open Space money being used to buy bleachers and tennis courts to purchase land around some of the streams that still have brookies. Or maybe the Maryland Department of the Environment could put protecting so-called "stronghold watersheds" near the top of the list.
"This is a big deal for me," says Stranko, 40, who has spent a large portion of his professional life documenting the loss of Maryland's critters. "You can go anywhere and catch a blue gill or a carp. Where can you go to catch a native brook trout in Maryland?"
Fighting hunger
Tip of the cap (tasteful hunter orange at this time of the year) to the Maryland Bowhunters Society for donating $1,000 to Farmers and Hunters Feeding the Hungry. The money is being used to defray the cost of turning deer from the Loch Raven Reservoir bow hunt into ground venison for food pantries and food banks.
FHFH is an 11-year-old Hagerstown-based charity that has chapters in most states. It raises money to pay participating butchers who process the meat for about 25 cents per serving vs. $3 a pound for ground beef.
The average deer yields 50 pounds of meat. Last year, the program processed 2,570 deer to produce 514,000 meals.
Unfortunately, FHFH often receives more than cash, forcing it to turn away thousands of meals. Maryland hunters can check a box when they buy their hunting licenses to give $1 to FHFH, but the bowhunters group decided to take it one step further. To learn more, go to fhfh.org.
Ripping the headline
What's wrong with this headline from the online version of the DNR magazine: "Striped Bass: Juvenile Index Down, Recreational Seasons Extended."
Pointing to it, a friend asked, "We have fewer baby striped bass this year, so we'll let recreational anglers fish two weeks longer? I feel like I'm taking crazy pills."
It's not as bad as it looks, really. After a monster birthing season in 2001, Chesapeake Bay striped bass have had four good years and three bad years, including this one. The seesaw effect is not unusual, biologists say.
Still, a headline like that is one of the reasons DNR has such trouble getting people to buy its science.
