ISSUE
If you are new to an area or an old-timer can you remember comments people there longer than you have made about your local swimming spot? Reconnecting with collective memory can tell you a story beyond what you have seen. This kind of local knowledge of environmental history isn’t just a glimpse of past time, it can be useful for shaping the future by informing habitat restoration and management, on a personal and community level it can change your relationship with a place.
For example, bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus), the provincial fish of Alberta, Canada are considered so vulnerable that Alberta Sustainable Resource Development has restricted fishing for them to catch and release. Yet, they used to be abundant and harvested.