Pictou County go-getters
restore historic habitats

For a group that first met only a few years ago, the Pictou County Rivers Association (PCRA) has a proud record.

Businessmen, anglers and others from New Glasgow, Stellarton,Westville, Trento, Pictou, and smaller towns as well, got together in late 1990 to voice concern over the degraded habitat in rivers that had once supported thriving fish populations.

The PCRA's first step was to nurture contacts in both the media and appropriate government departments. It then set up home-built displays in shopping malls to show photos of local rivers and their degraded habitats. Members delivered speeches to publicize these problems and to recruit more volunteers to help solve them.

After the damming of Middle River to create an impoundment for local industry, the fish ladder was so inneficient that salmon and sea trout virtually disappeared. The PCRA pressed the department of fisheries and oceans (DFO) to redesign it, and then began to stock the river with fry of both species every year. The PCRA installed a satellite-rearing tank in a privately-owned park, used it to raise more than 8,00 salmon fingerlings, and each October released them in the Middle River's headwaters.

Bear Brook, a tributary, was once an overflow outlet for Westville's sewage, a role that wiped out its formerly productive fish habitat. PCRA work crews surveyed the brook and installed in-stream devices to help flush the stream and create holding pools for fish. They encouraged local folk to watch them at work and explained to all visitors exactly what they were trying to accomplish and its importance.

With respect to education, the PCRA is among the most agressive of ASF's affiliates. It maintains salmon and trout incubators in 10 or more local elementary school classrooms where children learn about biodiversity, life cycles and habitat. They release the fry from hatched eggs in local waterways each Spring. The association also sponsors an annual trout derby for children.

The PCRA runs a River Watch program and produces and distributes a map showing salmon pools of the East and West rivers. With help from both government and NGO groups, the PCRA launched a campaign a few years ago called "Save the River - It's not a Sewer" to advise households about the danger of seepage from old septic tanks into streams and brooks.

Each spring the PCRA mounts an exhibit at their two-day Fishing Expo in a local arena. The show is but one example of the energetic and imaginative approach to fund-raising that has kept the PCRA humming along constructively since its inception.

Trout and Salmon couldn't have a better friend.