What's Wrong With This Picture?

A nonnative brown trout from a conservation organization website.

To be fair and clear, Fish Lead Free does very good and important work. They are a Northeast regional multiple agency/organization group that has done a lot to promote the use of non-lead weights and jigs in fishing. They have also helped gain support for legal restrictions in regard to lead fishing tackle in Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Vermont.

Fish Lead Free is primarily focused on loons. They are not a fish organization or even a clean water organization. Lead poisoning is the leading cause of mortality in adult loons in the northeast, accounting for hundreds of deaths over the last 25 years. This could be greatly reduced if anglers would switch to non-lead alternatives, and this is what Fish Lead Free is trying to do.

This is not a criticism, but an observation, and an opportunity to improve their messaging, while helping wild native fish and aquatic ecosystem conservation in general. And Fish Lead Free is by no means alone in this regard as many non-fish conservation groups, including clean water organizations and watershed associations are not fish-literate. Even some fish conservation organizations use nonnative fish in their messaging.

While doing some research on branding, and looking for some fish-related examples, I noticed that the Fish Lead Free website featured a picture of a nonnative brown trout on the banner. It appears to be part of a 4-image carousel that changes from page to page and session to session.

Not only did Fish Lead Free miss the use of a nonnative fish to promote their native loon preservation message, apparently none of their partners caught it either as pages with their logos shared the same banner. This includes U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, National Wildlife Federation, Loon Preservation Committee, Maine Department of Inland Fisheries and Wildlife, ME Audubon, ME Lakes, Sportsman’s Alliance of Maine, The Maine Sportsman, Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation, New Hampshire Fish and Game, NH Department of Environmental Services, NH Audubon, NH Lakes, Adirondack Center for Loon Conservation, Vermont Fish and Wildlife, and B.A.S.S.

When this many conservation and sporting related agencies and organizations don’t notice that they are using a nonnative fish to promote the conservation of native birds, don’t know what is and is not native in regard to fish, or don’t see nonnative fish or the use of them in regard to messaging as an issue, it shows just how far we have slipped and how hard groups like NFC will need to work to get things back on the right track. Again, these people mean well and want to do the right thing, so this is a much bigger problem than a simple oversight.

NFC has known from the start that if we going to be able to make any real progress in regard to wild native fish conservation, we will need to get the non-fish conservation groups on board, as well as the fishing industry and media, anglers, and government natural resource agencies. And this all starts with information and education, as well as outreach and challenges to the status quo.

NFC has reached out to Fish Lead Free to talk about the use of a nonnative fish to promote native loon conservation. We hope they will be receptive to a change in messaging that elevates native fish to the same status and importance of native loons.