BRASS has collected knowledgeable persons from around the area to be a "panel of experts" able to respond to your questions. So, send us a question about rivers, birds, fish, amphibians, mammals, weather, plants, invasive species, local history, farming, geology, toxins in stormwater, etc. by mail, phone or email (rulmer@co.essex.ny.us).
Q: 1) What fish are native to the Boquet River? 2) What fish now in the river are exotic species? 3) What crayfish are native?
A: 1&2 (from Bill Schoch, NYSDEC Fisheries) "Not a simple question to answer. Wide scale introductions of fish occurred in the Adirondacks in the late 1800's, yet fish surveys were not conducted in many waters until about 1930. Thus, for some species, there is no way to know if they were introduced prior to the first surveys, or if they were native. Nevertheless, for many fishes, early surveys provide clear evidence they were, or were not, native to the Adirondacks. Those early records also indicate certain species were native to the periphery of the Adirondacks, but were absent or had only scattered distributions in the interior of the Adirondacks.
"The following table lists fishes collected during recent surveys in portions of the Boquet River and Lincoln Pond. Where a species was collected, I provided my best determination of whether it was native or introduced. In general, the status of prominent species such as salmon, trout and bass, is well known. The status of less distinctive species, including minnows and chubs, may be less clear. For the latter group, if records indicate that a species was native to the periphery of the Adirondacks I generally listed it as native, based on the assumption that it would have had access to lower elevation portions of the Boquet Watershed. Three species, pumpkinseed, brown bullhead and creek chubs are listed as: "native/introduced." Those species were native to portions of the Adirondacks, but are known to have been very widely distributed to additional waters by man."
Fish species collected from portions of the Boquet Watershed and likely endemicity status(1):
Atlantic Salmon
Brook trout
Brown trout
Blacknose dace
Bluntnose minnow
Common shiner
Cutlips minnow
Creek chub
Golden shiner
Lake chub
Longnose dace
North. redbelly dace
Pearl dace
Longnose sucker
White sucker
Brown bullhead
Slimy sculpin
Trout-perch
Tessellated darter
Yellow perch
Burbot
Rock bass
Largemouth bass
Smallmouth bass
Pumpkinseed
Northern pike
(1) The species listing does not include many fishes from Lake Champlain that may be found in the lower most portions of the Boquet River, since the debate over native vs. nonnative becomes much more involved when the question is expanded to all of Lake Champlain.
Q: What crayfish are native?
A: (3) (from Dennis Kalma, BRASS) "There seem to be a lot of crayfish in the river. What they are, I have no idea. Classifying crayfish depends on the anatomy of a small appendage on the first abdominal segment of the male which has been modified to transfer sperm packets from the male to the female. For identification, one finds oneself looking at this appendage under a dissecting scope and answering questions like 'Is the second hair on the first bump of the third segment longer than the first hair. . .?' It is not an exercise for the faint of heart."