Science on the Fly harnesses fly fishing community to protect rivers
photo by John Land Le Coq.
Science on the Fly harnesses fly fishing community to protect rivers
How scientists and anglers are helping to tell the world’s climate change story.
Fly fishers are full of good ideas. Just ask them. They don’t always amount to anything, but, in the confines of a fly shop or between the gunnels of a drift boat, the ideas pour forth.
But one good idea, launched during a southwest Colorado environmental symposium a few years back, has taken root. And this past summer, it sprouted some important international branches that will hopefully help climate scientists better understand how the world’s existential climate crisis is impacting our rivers.
At the conference in Telluride in 2019, Dr. Max Holmes, president and CEO of the Woodwell Climate Research Center (WCRC) in Falmouth, Massachusetts, met John Land Le Coq, the founder and CEO of Fishpond, where the two discussed the idea of monitoring rivers over time for their chemical composition, with the intent of determining how climate change affects that composition. But, they discussed, the monitoring needed to be consistent and lasting in order for Holmes and his team at WCRC to glean truly meaningful data.
