“Current” affairs: water, freshwater fish, and our shared connection

About Madalen Howard

Madalen is the Freshwater Communications Specialist with World Wildlife Fund. She is a communications professional with extensive experience in environmental advocacy and outreach.

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Transcript

Madalen: [00:00:00] Every single animal on the planet is connected to freshwater. We cannot live without freshwater. So I think about elephants and jaguars just as much as I think about electric eels and archerfish. Of all of the ecosystems on our planet, of all of our biomes, freshwater ecosystems have seen the most drastic decline. You know, small consistent changes in your daily life are going to make a big difference. Each small action, particularly for individuals, does have that ripple effect.

Alexander: Thanks for joining this episode of World Wildlife Fund's Wildlife Café series. Here, we explore the incredible world of wildlife conservation, sharing inspiring stories, and connecting with the conservationists and remarkable work behind them.

We're going to dive into the world of freshwater fish, going beneath the surface with a topic that's as fascinating and cool as it is important. Freshwater fish are such a critical part of our web of life. They support millions of livelihoods, and they also just bring so much natural beauty to our rivers and lakes.

So we're here to talk about why conserving [00:01:00] freshwater fish isn't just really cool, but also why it's crucial at this current moment. Madalen Howard, WWF's freshwater communications specialist is joining this episode to help break down the complexities of freshwater fish conservation and share what we all need to know about this topic and the importance of protecting these special species and their aquatic homes.

Thanks for watching, and make sure to subscribe to catch more Wildlife Café episodes and stories.

Alexander: Hey Madalen, welcome to Wildlife Café.

Madalen: Thanks. I'm excited to be here.

Alexander: I'm so happy to have you joining this fishy episode. Anything with fish, I'm sold. So I'm excited to hear all about your mutual love of fish and the cool work that you're doing.

Madalen: Good. Yeah. I can't wait to talk about it. I, will probably ramble a little bit too much because I am definitely a fish gal, but, I think it'll be a fun time.

Alexander: Awesome. Well, why don't we actually start there then and hear a little bit more about what got you interested and [00:02:00] involved in aquatic and fish conservation in the first place? How did that all start?

Madalen: So it really did start when I was a kid. My mom was actually a marine biologist. So I grew up listening to her talking about like scuba diving stories. I actually have a photo of her. Behind me, where she was scuba diving back in the eighties.

And then I've got myself when I learned to scuba dive in the 2016 era. Um, And so, yeah, it was a lot of just like having this passion connection with my mom about ocean animals, and fish in particular. And my dad was also a really big angler.

So water has always really been a part of my life. I call myself a water baby. And, being able to then progress my career into the ocean sciences was what really solidified my love of fish in general.

I studied marine biology, took a bunch of classes in college about fish biology. They're so much cooler than people really give them credit for. They have so many amazing behaviors. They're really [00:03:00] intelligent. And, yeah, I just fell in love with these sort of underdogs, like the animals that people often don't see or hear about that often. And I actually even remember some of my friends in college made me like a fish birthday cake with Swedish Fish all over it. So I've definitely made myself a niche in the world of fish girl.

Alexander: I love that. I, kindred spirit here. Then I'll call myself fish boy because when I was growing up, I definitely said, I was like, I want to be a fish when I grow up. Not a very likely career trajectory, but that was an aspiration that I'm still working towards.

Madalen: Floating in the water with not a care in the world really is, life goals.

Alexander: Liberating, right? But yeah, it really is. I mean, it's not only is it a great area of work, and focus because of just how neat and interesting and cool it is, but also because freshwater ecosystems are really important in maintaining overall ecological health and biodiversity.

So could you share a little bit more about that role that they play?

Madalen: Yeah, absolutely.

So freshwater ecosystems [00:04:00] are really only 1 percent of our planet. So we obviously are surrounded by water. We see water everywhere, but only 1 percent of the water on our planet is actually accessible freshwater. And so when we think about that, it's things like rivers, lakes, wetlands, and those are vital to the survival of our entire species, not just humans, but every single animal on the planet depends on fresh water.

So, freshwater ecosystems are an incredibly important part of our world, right? and they're also really rare. So, only 1 percent is available fresh water that we can use for drinking and living. The other 2 percent is locked up in glaciers, and things like that.

So it's a really rare and valuable, resource and habitat. And we think of fresh water and our lakes and rivers and streams, but freshwater ecosystems and habitats are also really important culturally to different communities around the world, and recreationally. Anglers are a huge part of why I love freshwater [00:05:00] ecosystems.

That's where my dad instilled that in me. And, it's something that I think we really forget to think about is that freshwater habitats are also beautiful as much as they are important to the health of our environment.

Alexander: I totally agree. Yeah. Well, sadly, these freshwater systems, despite the role that they play in our overall planetary health, these ecosystems and the freshwater species that live in them, many of which are freshwater fish, they're considered to be some of the most threatened on earth, I think, right?

Madalen: Yes. Of all of the ecosystems on our planet, of all of our biomes, freshwater ecosystems have seen the most drastic decline in species populations in the last 50 years. An 85 percent decline, which is terrifying. That's such a huge drop. And a lot of it, I think, from a sort of personal level, has to just do with this idea that freshwater ecosystems are out of sight, out of mind.

They're not something that, unless we're going to them, [00:06:00] are an area that we think about all that often, unless we're going to a big lake where we feel like, oh, there's so much water here, how on earth could this be a threatened ecosystem?

But when you dive in and you see a bit more of how the water cycle and how the ecosystems are affected on a whole global scale, you start to see that we're really over allocating the amount of water that we use in all of our daily life.

Agriculture is a huge way that we use a lot of our water, and it's not the most efficient in our current system.

We also disconnect a lot of these systems. So rivers you know, span hundreds of thousands of miles and building infrastructure that disconnects them disrupts that balance and the way that fish are able to move up and downstream, how nutrients are able to move up and downstream.

So there's a lot of things that are affecting the way that this very delicate balanced ecosystem works. And unfortunately, that means we're seeing a dramatic and really scary decline in the health of freshwater [00:07:00] ecosystems.

Alexander: What exactly happens to ecosystems when a freshwater species or fish is lost? And how does that have these ripple effects on communities and others?

Madalen: Yeah, really good question. To answer that, you kind of have to zoom out just a bit. Because, in general, diverse ecosystems are resilient to stressors. So when you have lots of different species, lots of genetic diversity in an ecosystem, that means that, that place is going to be more resilient to different inputs, different stressors.

So for example, like a disease, if a disease swipes through and you only have one single type of animal or one single type of genetics, then it's much more likely that you're going to see a complete collapse of that ecosystem. When you have lots of different animals that, breeds in a little bit of resilience and a bit of a rebound essentially.

So it's important to have biodiversity in all ecosystems. And that obviously means, for freshwater ecosystems as well. So if you were to see the loss of a single [00:08:00] fish species, they are often playing a really important role in the food web, right? They're either a predator or prey or both. They are moving nutrients around so that plants are able to grow in the right areas or populate along the riverbeds. So losing even just one species really disrupts the way that the ecosystem is balanced, and it causes that ripple effect. And so you may not see it an immediate, like once you lose one species immediately, the system is collapsing. But it does start that domino cascade effect.

And eventually in the worst case scenarios, when you start to see things like 85 percent decline or further than that. You see dried up riverbeds. You see areas where human communities are no longer able to sustain themselves and people are having to move or migrate, or in, obviously the worst case scenarios, you're seeing communities and people die.

Alexander: To some of those examples, like you were mentioning, how like this cascading [00:09:00] effect, and then there's particular and specific species where maybe where that's maybe a little bit more noticeable. Do you have specific examples of some of those species that are at particular risk and why it is such a concern that they're threatened because of that role that they play in the larger freshwater web of life?

Madalen: Yeah, absolutely. It's so hard for me to choose one species when I talk about freshwater ecosystems because in my brain, every single animal on the planet is connected to freshwater, right? We cannot live without freshwater. So I think about, elephants and jaguars just as much as I think about electric eels and archerfish.

And a fish that I've recently really become interested in because I live in Colorado now is the Rio Grande cutthroat trout. I’m very close to the Rio Grande River. It's an area of work within World Wildlife Fund, and it's a species that has a really big cultural phenomenon around it. Anglers are really interested in the cutthroat trout.

It's a [00:10:00] native species. So it's been in this area in the Rio Grande Basin for millennia.

And it's got some kind of cool behaviors as well. They are somewhat territorial when they're mating. They build nests and they build fake nests so that the other males will basically get tricked so that they don't fertilize the correct eggs and they're an incredibly important part of that food web that I was mentioning, they're both predator and prey.

They migrate so they're also moving nutrients up and down the river. And back to just the thing that gets me into freshwater ecosystems in general. They're one of the most beautiful fish I've ever seen. They have such gorgeous scale patterns. They're really intelligent, so they're hard for anglers to catch. And yeah, I guess they're the one I'm geeking out on the most right now.

Alexander: Very cool. Well and were you saying that they're near where you currently live, so have you gotten to see them when you're out and about and communing with nature, have you gotten to see them?

Madalen: I wish, but they are [00:11:00] definitely, they're not officially threatened. Their populations are declining pretty significantly. And so they are much harder to find in just easy to access areas. They usually tend to live in very high Rocky Mountain streams, in colder water. So you really have to trek to find them. And I've only gotten to see videos and pictures. So never once have I gotten to see one in real life yet, but it's on the bucket list for sure.

Alexander: Oh, so cool. Fingers crossed. You were starting to touch actually on a follow up question that I wanted to ask you. I was going to ask, are they facing specific challenges and in their native habitats? If you can share a little bit more to like, where else they might be found currently since their numbers are lower.

Madalen: Yeah, absolutely.

So the Rio Grande Cutthroat Trout, specific to the Rio Grande River, but they're more often found in the Rocky Mountain area, so the northern reaches of the basin. And, some of the things that we've seen that have, started to harm their livelihood, their population, are the same things that we're [00:12:00] seeing that harm all freshwater species.

And that's over allocation of water, which really basically leads to water scarcity. So we're seeing, essentially, people are using too much water and it's drying up river beds. That's one of the biggest problems that we're seeing today. So another thing that we see is fragmentation of their habitat. And that can come from infrastructure, whether it's dams or other versions of infrastructure, community building, things like that, that aren't planned out well, so that don't allow for the fish to move, back and forth past those dams. Essentially, that leads to sort of this decline overall in their ability to find food and their ability to get to their mating grounds, Um, and it can also lead to a decrease in that nutrient movement, which can end up down the line reducing the oxygen in the water. And so then it's literally just their habitat isn't quite as habitable as it used to be.

So there's a lot of [00:13:00] stressors that they're facing.

Alexander: Wow. Then what can people do, whether you're a policymaker or, communities or an individual, like what can they do to support conserving and protecting the Rio Grande cutthroat trout?

Madalen: Yeah, great question. There's so much to do. And I'm glad you asked because I do think it's important to focus on the fact that there are lots of solutions and there's lots of things that we can do to help when we see these, this drastic decline in our environments.

And it is very dependent on who you are and where your power lies, right?

Looking for the research that places like World Wildlife Fund and our incredible program manager within the Rio Grande, Enrique Prunes has led, looking to that research to understand what is going to help. So, if you're an individual, that can feel really overwhelming. And so there are still things that even just as an individual, you can do. And I like to say, you can choose your change. It doesn't have to be that you're doing every [00:14:00] single thing all day, every day in order to make a difference. Small consistent changes in your daily life are going to make a big difference.

And so things like looking where your clothing is coming from, is your clothing coming from an area or from a company that uses sustainable water management practices that isn't overusing water. Uh, Looking at food that you're eating, if you're eating really high-water intensive food, then maybe cutting back a little bit on whatever that might be and incorporating a few more, water resistant foods into your diet can really make a big difference.

So there's lots of different ways, even things like river cleanups, making sure that your local streams and rivers don't have plastic pollution in them. And, you're kind of uniting the community around this rally cry to make sure that your backyard ecosystems are clean and healthy. All of those things make a really big difference. And you don't have to do everything. You can just choose one thing and you're, I promise, you're going to make a big difference.

Alexander: I love that. There's so much that [00:15:00] you were mentioning there, there really are so many different actions that you can take. There is no small action, that really anything can make a difference and how you were talking about before how like we're all freshwater species.

We're all connected to freshwater. So even if it might seem a bit far from you and you're not seeing it with your eyes that you don't have that direct contact. We're all connected. Somehow to that freshwater system. And we are all, we're all part of it.

So there's a lot that, that, that can be done, that's wonderful. But zooming out, are those actions and things that would be helpful for a multitude of other species, not just for Rio Grande cutthroat trout, how do conservation efforts like that, that are helping freshwater species maybe differ than what you might do to protect a marine or even a terrestrial species, or are they all similar at the end of the day?

Madalen: I definitely think that each small action, particularly for individuals, does have that ripple effect, right? You'll, if you're choosing, to, clean up, an area in your backyard, whether, maybe [00:16:00] it's not even directly connected to a stream, maybe you're just doing a highway cleanup or something like that, that's a reduced amount of trash that's going to end up in, getting blown into rivers and lakes some, at some point down the road. Another thing that I actually forgot to mention is. we have partners in the Rio Grande Basin that are doing things like tree planting and native plant restoration, and they're building beaver dam analogs to slow the flow of the river. So volunteering with those types of organizations is another great way to get involved.

Um, And all of those things do end up affecting more than just the Rio Grande cutthroat trout. When you're directly volunteering within the ecosystem, you're obviously impacting everything that lives in that area from the little dragonflies that land on the marsh grasses to potentially the beavers that are coming to build their dams and have their little families. Um, and then of course, all of the fish that are in that ecosystem. And then in the long run, that type of help within a freshwater ecosystem restores the water [00:17:00] table, it replenishes the groundwater, and that allows us to be able to more sustainably use the water as a resource for human function. Um, so it definitely brings vibrancy back no matter what it is you're doing. Because you're helping to sustain that health and as the ecosystem gets healthier and healthier, it provides more and more benefits.

When you're talking about actions to take for marine, terrestrial or freshwater ecosystems, there's a lot of similarities.

There's a lot of work in restoration, right? If you're restoring native plants, that's something that's technically terrestrial, but it's often going to affect freshwater ecosystems exponentially. Picking up trash, every stream leads to the ocean. So making sure that trash is staying out of rivers.

That also means you're helping to protect oceans and keeping trash out of oceans. So just like we've said throughout. All of these ecosystems are interconnected and taking action in one place is absolutely going to help the global ecosystem.

Alexander: I love that [00:18:00] so much. And it kind of makes me think of, a quote from Sylvia Earle that I really love and has really resonated with me and it's about the sea, although you are just sharing how there's a lot of connections and similarities, no matter what ecosystem you're talking about, but how water really is this great connector.

And that with every drop of water, every breath that you take, you're connected to the sea. You're connected to that water system. So thanks for sharing. It's very, really inspiring.

I want to finally ask Madalen, where can people go to learn more about a lot of what you've shared and what WWF is doing to protect freshwater fish and their ecosystems?

Madalen: Yeah, definitely. So visit the WWF website and search for Freshwater. There's so many different projects that are going on around the world. From the Mekong river to the Pantanal, to right here in our backyard in the Rio Grande. And I definitely recommend checking out our project page in the Rio Grande, seeing all the work that's happening there, to protect these species here in the [00:19:00] U.S. and, my favorite as of now, fish, the cutthroat trout.

Alexander: I think you've maybe made it a favorite of mine too. I don't know if I knew too much about the Rio Grande cutthroat trout before this. So thank you. Thank you for teaching me.

Madalen: Yeah, of course.

Alexander: This has been so much fun, Madalen. I have loved hearing about all of your work and experiences. I really have learned so much about our aquatic friends. Thank you again for being a part of Wildlife Café, and I can't wait to follow along with this work even more closely.

Madalen: Absolutely, thank you so much for having me, Alexander.

Learn more about WWF's wildlife conservation work.