Octogenarian Edward M. Wells, a former Braintree educator enjoying blissful retirement nestled in Leyden’s gentle hills, has issues with our Connecticut River Atlantic salmon-restoration effort. First, he’s tired of stocked salmon progeny interfering with his native brook-trout angling along shaded, backwoods, Franklin County streams; second, he’s tired of the propaganda.

Wells was so stirred up last summer that he fired off a complaint to MassWildlife. He was reacting to “Brook Trout in Massachusetts,” a Kathleen Campbell article about conservation efforts aimed at rebuilding declining Eastern Brook Trout populations in the Northeast. The story was published in “Massachusetts Wildlife,” MassWildlife’s popular quarterly magazine. It was one of many stories, including more than one in this space, published in the Northeast last year during a media blitz by Trout Unlimited and the Eastern Brook Trout Joint Venture — a watchdog organization uniting private conservation and academic groups with 17 state fish and wildlife agencies and federal partners under one altruistic tent. The goal was to protect and build dwindling wild-brook-trout habitat, some of the best of which exists right here in our Franklin/Hampshire and southern Vermont hills.

Wells’ opinion, formed after three-quarters-of-a-century-worth of fishing experience on local streams, is that one quick way to protect our indigenous brookies is to quit polluting their native streams with foreign, hatchery-raised invaders called Connecticut River Atlantic salmon progeny. Mr. Wells stated his contentions succinctly in an erudite, July 10, 2006 letter to the editors of Massachusetts Wildlife. He’s still waiting for a response. Let’s excerpt the letter here:

“If the global attention now given to environmental issues is valid, it stresses that we humans must learn to control our waste products in a responsible manner. This does not include the delusional and irresponsible dumping of Atlantic salmon fry in our mixed-forest, glacially spawned, beautiful New England brooks, so unique and delightful.

“As a dedicated, non-purist, worm-fisherman who uses a modest, no-frills fly rod, I am distressed to spend an outing catching these huge-eyed, little nibblers who have usurped my favorite spots and greatly diminished the number of native trout by their consumption of the available stream nutrients.”

After praising state, federal and private organizations for a job well done improving the water quality of our Connecticut River and its tributaries as a byproduct of anadromous-fish restoration over the past 30 or 40 years, Wells gets back to his diatribe against salmon stocking:

“The unreasoned release of millions (literally) of raised fry and smolts is deceptive and counter-productive in light of the clear impossibility of these fish reaching Long Island Sound and returning to their spawning sites. The existence of multiple dams on almost all of our stream drainage precludes this. The Volstead Act (Prohibition) of the 1920s was a noble experiment also, but it was doomed (or damned) by its idealist frailty.

“To enlist school kids in these failed ecology projects is both deceptive and poor science. Give it up, please.”

Before we proceed, be it known that Mr. Wells does read this column but was not aware that I became an outspoken critic of our salmon program during the 90s, following exhaustive research on the status of salmon migration in colonial New England. It’s not that I’m against the program. Quite the contrary, I initially viewed the initiative favorably, and still accept it as worthwhile, albeit barely. My salient oppositional point has always been that we’re trying to restore a Connecticut River salmon run that was never great, even during the golden era of the Little Ice Age, which ended during the first quarter of the 19^th century. Even then the mouth of the Connecticut River was at the southern extreme of a North American salmon range defined by water temperature. So what hope exists with the earth warming at an alarming rate, and with it the water temperatures of historic New England salmon rivers like the Penobscot, Merrimack and Connecticut?

During the first 150 years of New England settlement, the sight of a 45-pound Atlantic salmon in the nets of shad fishermen below Peskeumskut Falls was a celebratory event, akin to a contemporary Colrain hunter bagging an 11-point, 205-pound racker. Salmon-restoration officials will dispute that informed opinion unless they do the research. But according to more than one critic within the professional anadromous-fish fraternity, the “true-believers” are not interested in history, and they’re not interested in numbers, either.

Imagine that! Doctors and masters of science who ignore numbers, the very basis of scientific experimentation. It’s true. Defenders of the salmon-restoration program must ignore numbers because they’re clear as a starlit February sky, screaming that the program has been a dismal failure. How else to describe an initiative that has deposited hundreds of millions of immature salmon into Connecticut River basin streams for an annual return of about 200? And let’s be honest: Two hundred salmon swimming up the Connecticut River basin is like a microscopic speck of dust floating in a 5000-gallon tank of water. You do the math. It ain’t encouraging.

The original goal of our salmon-restoration program was to create a recreational fishery on the Connecticut and its major tributaries, such as the Westfield, Deerfield, Millers, West and White rivers. Now, whispering officials will admit that initial goal will neven be realized, period. It’s out of the question. But they can’t admit it because there would be public outcry and potential program termination. So instead, the loyal employees shepherd a massive public-relations campaign aimed at what Wells calls “schoolkids,” who raise tiny salmon in their classroom aquariums and release them into local streams hoping they’ll return as spawning adults. Perhaps they should instead learn to pray, because the probability that one of their fish will return is about equal to winning the lottery. That’s what they don’t tell the kids, who will forever nourish a romantic myth planted by dishonest “education.”

“What really got to me was the way they manipulate the kids,” said Wells, 41 years a teacher. “I see the pictures and stories in the paper, smiling teachers and kids releasing salmon into our streams with the hope they’ll be back to spawn. It’s pure deception. They’re trying to put a happy face on an impossible dream.”

But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. It gets worse. You see, Wells attended a student field trip to a local facility that sent his blood pressure skyrocketing. During a presentation, one of the workers told the idealistic students that it was comforting to know that someday his grandchildren would be able to stand on the banks of the Connecticut River and catch Atlantic salmon.

“He wasn’t telling the truth,” said Wells, emphatic that he’s not angry, just disappointed with the dishonesty. “He was a nice man, very knowledgeable, but what he told those kids was wrong, in my opinion. He knows a recreational salmon fishery is unattainable.”

At this point it’s not about truth and integrity; it’s about planting the seed of hope in future generations, political spin created to shape policy and keep the money flowing into a failed program. These committed, well-meaning scientists are not evil people worthy of scorn. They’re bright, articulate scientists attempting to perpetuate a myth and preserve a wonderful job located in a slice of paradise known as the Connecticut Valley.

I guess you can’t blame them for that.