Bill McLarney: Peeks Creek trout population wiped out
Local biologist and aquatic scientist Bill McLarney agreed with the Wildlife Commission’s revised recommendations to allow stream work, but for an unusual reason — the trout population, at least in Peeks Creek, is gone.
“Apparently the force was such that everything was swept out,” McLarney said of Peeks Creek. “There’s precious little spawning habitat and there’s no adult fish to spawn.”
The mass exodus of fish is something McLarney, director of the Little Tennessee Biomonitoring Projec, said he’s only seen once or twice before, and then it was the result of toxins in the water, not natural events. Restoring the stream not only would help restore balance in the natural system, it would re-create spawning areas that would reinvigorate the trout population, McLarney said.
“You’re going to have more fish in the future if you do something now,” he said.
McClarney has been monitoring the aquatic health of creeks and streams in the Little Tennessee Watershed for more than a decade as part of a project funded in part by the TVA.
