Brookies in the Chattooga Watershed

Large waterfalls prevent non-natives from swimming upstream into brook trout habitat.

Known affectionately to many as speckled trout or “specks,” southern brook trout once thrived in almost every stream in the Chattooga River watershed. Now, after a barrage of destructive human activity, our beloved native brookies struggle to survive as their fragile habitat has been reduced to a handful of creeks.

Non-native competition and the high water temperatures, excessive nutrient levels, and sedimentation associated with ecologically unsound logging and development have critically degraded most of our trout streams. The presence and population density of southern brook trout is a key indicator of water quality, as they are much less tolerant of chemical pollutants than most fish species. Though brook trout are not always directly affected by high nutrient levels, non-native rainbow and brown trout sometimes benefit from the added nutrients of runoff and sewage, which makes competition stiff for brookies. The foreign trout are more aggressive and more omnivorous. Southern brookies simply do not do well with other fish present. In fact, they usually exist as the only fish species in their native habitat.

The concept that the southern brook trout is a different sub-specie than its northern counterpart has long been a subject of debate amongst scientists. Though the southern strain has not been awarded its own unique Latin name, the consensus is that they are indeed different. The two varieties are nearly identical in appearance, but they differ in genetic composition. Even among the few remaining brook trout streams in the Southern Appalachians, the southern strain is less common than the northern. Along with rainbows and browns, the northern brook trout has been widely stocked in southern creeks, and in most cases the two “sub-species” have interbred. Peter Galbreath, director of the Mountain Aquaculture Research Center at Western Carolina University, estimates that only 10-15% of the brook trout in the Chattooga watershed are of pure southern lineage. Population studies are currently being conducted in North Carolina and Georgia.

In 1995, the Chattooga Conservancy hired biologist Bill McLarney to perform a brook trout survey in the Chattooga watershed. One objective was to discover previously undocumented brook trout populations. As a result, nine streams were added to the list of known brookie habitat in the watershed. The study also identified high quality streams where absent brook trout populations could potentially be restored.

After the McLarney study was completed in 1996, the Conservancy presented the results to the Forest Service and proposed a southern brook trout restoration plan using money from the Chattooga River Watershed Restoration Project. Ideally, existing habitat and suitable future habitat would be preserved by obliterating unnecessary roads in sensitive areas and by giving these areas a heightened level of protection and/or wilderness status. Existing brook trout streams could also be protected through the Forest Service’s Land Management Plan revision. Established populations of pure southern brook trout could be used to restore populations in areas that offer viable habitat, while non-native species are eradicated from all native trout waters.

To date, the Forest Service has completed one brook trout restoration project. It consisted mainly of the addition of erosion controls to a short stretch of road near a known brookie stream. Sedimentation is certainly a threat to native trout, but natural buffers are much more effective than a manmade attempt to stop erosion from a road that should not exist in the first place. Watershed restoration money should be spent on projects that actually restore the original ecosystem. Now with Hemlock Woolly Adelgids threatening high elevation water quality, active protection for brook trout is needed more than ever.

Southern brook trout are now among a frighteningly large number of disappearing species. They are as much a part of our natural heritage as the clear tumbling waters where they swim and they deserve our aid. Now the Smokies restoration project has set a tremendous precedent for southern brook trout. If you would like to see native habitat restored for our southern brookies, please write Randy Fowler at the Tallulah Ranger Station, 809 Highway 441 South, Clayton, GA 30525, and let him know that you feel watershed restoration money should be used to restore the brookies’ native ecosystem.