June 20, 2006
Contact: Laura Hewitt, (608) 250-3534
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
OWAA honors writer for essay on Lake Superior’s
coaster brook trout
Eric
Hansen receives ‘Excellence in Craft’ award
LAKE CHARLES, La.—Thanks
to his efforts to publicize the plight of the few remaining coaster brook trout
in the Salmon Trout River of Michigan’s Upper
Peninsula, writer and guidebook author Eric Hansen was presented the
2006 Excellence in Craft Award from the Outdoor Writers Association of America
on Sunday.
Hansen received the award for his essay, “It was a
Big Trout. A Good Trout. A Good, Big Trout,” which appeared in the June
12, 2005, edition of the Chicago Tribune. The award, which is sponsored in part
by Trout Unlimited, recognizes excellence in writing that positively impacts
issues surrounding coldwater fisheries in the United States. In his essay, Hansen
referenced Ernest Hemingway and the famous author’s love for the fish and
the fishing in a fictional UP trout stream. Hemingway had a high regard for the
wily trout of the Upper Peninsula.
Today, Kennecott Corp.’s plans for a sulfide mine underneath the
headwaters of the Salmon Trout River
threaten that stream’s coaster brook trout, the last remnant population
of these magnificent native fish in the Upper
Peninsula.
“Given the plight of coaster brook trout in the Upper Peninsula, this essay fairly and accurately
describes a very serious threat to one of the last viable populations of these
fish left in the country,” said Laura Hewitt, director of Trout
Unlimited’s Watershed Programs. “Eric’s writing proves
that Hemingway’s love for the Upper Peninsula's
pristine streams generations ago has survived, and that protecting them
and their resources is of acute importance.”
Trout Unlimited has worked for 15 years with numerous
partners across the Lake Superior
Basin to carve out a
brighter future for these big, lake-dwelling brook trout that use tributary
streams like the Salmon Trout River each autumn for spawning. The Salmon Trout
coaster population is the last viable population on the United States side of the lake except for remote
Isle Royale, and is key to TU’s broad
efforts to restore these fish to their native streams.
Coasters were once so common that they were caught by the
barrel in Superior tributaries. Historic
newspaper accounts from the late 1800s noted that streams running into Lake Superior “seem to possess exhaustless numbers
of brook trout.” That’s no longer true today. Overfishing, followed
by logging, mining, road construction and agricultural activity led to the
general demise of America’s
largest brook trout. Today, the fish survive in strongholds that include Canada’s Nipigon
River, Isle Royale National Park,
and the Salmon Trout River of Michigan.
“It’s possible, with a concerted conservation
and restoration effort, that these fish could once again return to spawn in
astonishing numbers,” Hewitt said. “But, as Eric pointed out in his
essay, there is no room for error with the planned mining development in the
headwaters of the Salmon Trout River. We are very concerned about the
future of these remarkable fish.”
A link to the award-winning essay can be found on the
front page of Eric Hansen’s Website, www.eric-hansen.com.
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Trout Unlimited is North
America’s largest coldwater fisheries conservation
organization with over 170,000 members in 36 states.