Is conservation preservation - Part 1

Chase the Rainbow, be the Rainbow

I had a nightmare last night.  One that reoccurs from time to time.  As I'm walking down to a creek that is frequented by many, a young lad approaches me to help him identify a fish he had just landed.  Happy to help, I follow him to a 5 or 6 lb rainbow trout gasping for breath on the shoreline while a large aberdeen hook and attached night crawler hang from it's gaping mouth.  I have this nightmare every-so-often because it was an actual experience.  As we walked to the fish, the kid was explaining to me that he has a large rainbow mounted on his wall and he wanted to mount a brown trout.  He was checking with me to see if this rainbow trout was a brown trout.  He had no intentions of keeping a rainbow, and yet, there it lay.

I hurried the fish into the creek.  It was spring, and the water was ice cold.  I sat holding this fish under water for about 15 minutes, but it seemed like an hour.  I don't recall at what point I lost feeling in my arms and hands.  I don't know how long the fish had been out of water, but I'm sure some damage had been done.  Eventually, the big fish gingerly swam back into the darkness of the hole. I sat and waited, long after the kid had left, to ensure it didn't float downstream or go belly up in the hole.  I didn't see it again, but I had a feeling that it was not going to make it, and it took the wind out of my fishing sales before I even began.

It got me thinking about a radiolab podcast I listed to recently.  The story follows a wealthy businessman in Texas.  Long story short, he bids on an endangered Black Rhino hunt, and a radio producer follows him on his adventure.  What results is a dramatic discussion about conservation and the morals surrounding it.  Give it a listen.  Whichever side of the fence you are on with this topic, I'm sure you will enjoy it.

http://www.radiolab.org/story/rhino-hunter/

Part 2 of this blog post coming soon. Stay tuned...