Poisoned fish

I am writing to alert your readers to the Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks current and on-going program to poison our creeks, streams and lake with rotenone and other poisons.

I initially objected to this practice because, unlike the 1970s, when my husband and our sons could still fish for brook trout and rainbow, those days are just a memory. Ask yourself, when was the last time you could find a little creek with brook trout in it?

As of last month, Matt Boyer, project leader for the FWP, was quoted as saying they had "wonderful luck" in the reproduction of their favorite fish, the westslope cutthroat, after they had killed everything else. That's what most people forget. When rotenone is put in to water, anything that swims, hops or flies is exterminated.

Their next body of water was to be Smokey Creek, located north of Holland Lake, and an outlet stream that flows toward the South Fork of the Flathead River.

Someone else who has paid attention to this is Dr. Vernon Grove, a retired physician living in Whitefish. Dr. Grove wrote a letter to the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell detailing the connection between the use of rotenone in water to the incidence of Parkinson's disease in our population, as it was reported in the American Medical Journal.

I am urging anyone who reads this to write the people involved in the business of tourism and water activities. And to also write the governor and FWP. Tell them two wrongs don't make a right. Poison the water, kill the fish and then expect the public to approve.

Clare Hafferman

Kalispell