Bentrod...you are missing the point.
What I'm trying to say is that the Cultus Lake Sockeye co-existed with the Pikeminnow for thousands of years BEFORE man intervened. If they co-existed for that long, why all of a sudden do we need to step in and 'tinker'?
The Cultus Lake Sockeye used to be a very healthy productive run of fish....and without us killing the Pikeminnows. My point is that it is man's tinkering...and agreeing with Chris that it is also greed and corruption that have ruined the Cultus Lake Sockeye as well as other species.
Robert... you are missing a VERY important point on the Cultus socks.
Yes the pikeminnow and socks lived together and were productive together years ago but...
Since the introduction of milfoil into Cultus Lake pikeminnow numbers exploded.
The numbers before were in balance because pikeminnow also prey on their own young, but with milfoil the young had more places to hide and grow to larger sizes.
The milfoil also allowed the larger fish to ambush the smolts that are swimming around in the open water column and not the weeds.
Eliminating them IMO (since I worked up there this summer) has only helped this ecosystem.
Sockeye escapement numbers were up in the past 5 years (period of program) and other pops of fish such as trout were in greater numbers as well.
And I wouldn't say these are massively important to the Fraser system.
The sturgeon have the salmon and other fish to feed on, and the one or two pikeminnow they find dead wont help them that much.
Same goes for all the eagles, etc.
I agree that man's tinkering and greed do destroy habitats and that nature could balance itself out, but Cultus Lake is a bad example.
Those sockeye need all the help they can get and with the milfoil the pikeminnow numbers won't be at an equilibrium.
Can't see that run coming back anyways, go whichever direction the wind is blowing after a weekend and look at the oil on the water.