Killing One Trout to Save Another: A Hegemonic Political Ecology with Its Biopolitical Basis in Yellowstone’s Native Fish Conservation Plan

Abstract

Yellowstone National Park implements a native fish conservation plan to control translocated trout species competing with native cutthroat trout. Under the plan, millions of lake trout are removed from Yellowstone Lake and park streams are poisoned to eradicate other translocated trout species. Killing trout introduced by officials decades earlier is a significant reversal in fisheries management. This article employs a biopolitical analysis of data derived qualitatively from semistructured interviews, relevant documents, and participant observation in the field. Results reveal a diversity of sometimes antagonistic stakeholders subjecting themselves to the practice of killing formerly revered fish based on truth claims circulating around the crisis-based conservation of native fish populations and ecosystem health. Stakeholders support logics of killing in relation to their varied engagements with fish, leading to a multiplicity of biopolitical motivations endorsing nativism in Yellowstone. From this multiplicity emerges a conservation hegemon where power over life and death is enacted in many corners of the biosocial collective but trends toward dominant knowledge and practice vested in the National Park Service. Theorizing killing for conservation as a hegemonic political ecology reconceptualizes the place of species outside of problematic dichotomies like native and nonnative. Instead, species are either hegemonic or counterhegemonic based on their lively positions relative to the conservation hegemon, leading to more honestly articulated motivations behind resource management goals associated with the practice of killing for conservation.

为控制外来鳟鱼物种与本地黄石山鳟的竞争, 黄石国家公园实施了一项本地鱼类保护计划。该计划从黄石湖和公园溪流中移走数百万条本地鳟鱼, 然后对湖水和溪流下药, 毒死外来鳟鱼物种。当地官员在几十年前引入的杀鳟方法也是渔业管理领域的重大转折点。本文通过半结构式访问、相关文件以及该领域参与者的观察得出定性数据, 然后对其进行生物政治分析。结果表明：为了应对危机而保护本土鱼群物种和生态系统健康, 选择杀戮曾经受到推崇的鱼类 —— 利益相关方对这种方式的接受程度各不相同, 甚至存在对立。利益相关者因其与之不同的关系而支持杀鱼的逻辑, 这也催生了人们因为不同的生物政治动机来支持黄石的本土主义。这种多样性态度也浮现了保护霸权问题, 不仅对生物集体社会的各个方面实行生死控制权, 同时还如国家公园管理局一样, 在知识和实践趋势方面占据主动权。从理论上讲, 为了保护而进行杀戮是一种政治生态霸权。它在本身就存在问题的二分法（例如本土和非本土）之外, 重新定义了物种地位的概念。相反, 对于物种而言, 它们生存地点与保护霸权地点之间的关系, 决定了它们是霸权一方或是反霸权一方, 这也更真实地表明了通过”为保护而杀戮”进行资源管理目标背后的动机。

El Parque Nacional de Yellowstone implementa un plan de conservación de peces nativos para controlar una especie de trucha introducida que compite con la feroz trucha nativa. Concordando con este plan, millones de truchas lacustres son removidas del Lago Yellowstone y se envenenan las corrientes del parque para erradicar otras especies de trucha introducidas allí. Matar las truchas que se introdujeron por los oficiales del parque en décadas anteriores es una medida de reversa bien significativa en el manejo piscícola. Este artículo emplea un análisis biopolítico de datos derivados cualitativamente a partir de entrevistas semiestructuradas, documentos relevantes y observación participativa de campo. Los resultados revelan una variedad de interesados a veces antagónicos que se someten a la práctica de exterminar peces que antes eran admirados haciéndose eco de afirmaciones que circulan en relación con la crisis de conservación de las poblaciones de peces nativos y el bienestar del ecosistema. Los interesados apoyan la lógica de la eliminación según variadas maneras de relacionarse con los peces, lo cual lleva a una multiplicidad de motivaciones biopolíticas para respaldar lo nativo de Yellowstone. De esa multiplicidad surge un hegemón conservacionista donde el poder sobre la vida y la muerte se recrea en muchas esquinas del colectivo biosocial, aunque se orienta hacia el conocimiento y la práctica dominantes con los que se ha investido el Servicio de Parques Nacionales. Teorizar el exterminio en favor de la conservación como una ecología política hegemónica reconceptualiza el lugar de la especie por fuera de dicotomías problemáticas como nativas y no nativas. En vez de eso, las especies son o hegemónicas o antihegemónicas con base en su ligero posicionamiento relativo a su hegemón conservacionista, conduciendo a motivaciones más honestamente articuladas detrás de las metas de manejo de recursos asociadas con la práctica de matar en favor de la conservación.

Key Words:

• biopolitics
• conservation
• hegemony
• political ecology
• trout

关键词:

• 生物政治
• 保护
• 霸权
• 政治生态
• 鳟鱼

Palabras clave:

• biopolítica
• conservación
• ecología política
• hegemonía
• trucha

Acknowledgments

I thank, without implication, the anonymous reviewers and editor for their constructive comments on this article. I also thank my father, Harold E. Perkins, for introducing me, as a child, to trout in the U.S. West.

Notes

1 Anglers illegally introduced lake trout into Yellowstone Lake in the 1980s (NPS 2010).

2 Native and similar terminologies are fraught with imprecisions and biases. I use the terms only in reference to stakeholders’ use of them.

3 Wild fish refers to self-sustaining, translocated populations.

4 Translocated species are relocated by humans, either purposefully or mistakenly. Using translocated thus avoids the imprecision and biases associated with terms like invasive alien species.

5 Arguments beyond the scope of this article are made for theoretical reconciliation between Foucault and Gramsci (Ekers and Loftus 2008; Kreps 2016).

6 The fishing bridge spans the Yellowstone River near Yellowstone Lake. Trout were easily caught from the bridge while they swam downstream to spawn.

7 Anglers uncritically consider YCT authentic components of park wilderness despite the fact that YCT are themselves translocated species throughout much of it. Hourdequin and Havlick (2013) would likely refer to this as an epistemological inauthenticity because narratives driving the restoration of authentic fisheries fail to include human interventions required to maintain their park population.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Harold A. Perkins

HAROLD A. PERKINS is an Associate Professor in the Department of Geography at Ohio University, Athens, OH 45701. E-mail: [email protected]. His research interests include political ecology, environmental governance, environmental justice, and the agency of nonhuman organisms.