What is the role of fish stocking on the Chattooga?
Over 70,000 exotic trout are stocked on the Chattooga each year to attract anglers. Many are stocked via helicopter in a roadless area. This practice has lead angling groups to oppose Wilderness designation for these areas. The stocking program attracts significant use and has lead to streambank erosion, many miles of user created trails, significant vegetation impacts, and obviously major impacts on other current and historic visitors (eg paddlers). The stocked fish have driven native brook trout out of the river, and the USFS currently is poisoning Chattooga tributaries in an attempt to protect brook trout from the invasive fish they are stocking in the mainstem.
