Huron fish kill exemplifies racial bias in South Dakota fisheries management, expert says
HURON, South Dakota — Three white, middle-aged men standing on the edge of the ice above the Third Street Dam peered deeply into the waters below. Their eyes waited for their prey to show even the smallest semblance of action. Then, with their arms raised head-high, they furiously plunged their spears into the James River.
Shooting through the water, a sharp SPLISH carried out from each instrument, but only once does a more subtle, blunted THUNK follow ― the sound of a hunter hitting his mark. Two spears are quickly pulled waist-high, while a five-pronged trident is slowly lifted above-stream, a gar in its grasp.
The successful hunter leverages his catch over the ice, draws his spear inward and pulls the fish off the tines, which leaves a glossy pink residue behind. He unceremoniously holds his prey by its tail and tosses it a few feet behind him. Another hemorrhaging catch lands in the accumulating pile of fish carcasses. Some carp, but mostly gar.
"We don't eat this stuff," one of the fisherman said. "But they do."
He pointed to two people: one, an Asian American woman wearing a sky-blue hoodie, grey sweatpants and sandals; the other, an Asian American man with a black leather jacket, black beanie, black boots, beige cargo pants with a digital camo pattern, and clear plastic gloves. They were carrying the fresh fish by the gills to their car parked nearby.
This scene played out mid-January, when Paste BN Network reporters traveled to Huron, South Dakota, to observe first-hand the effects wrought by a sizable fish kill. A South Dakota Game, Fish and Parks' official said the deaths of the hundreds of fish likely stem from low water levels and a lack of dissolved oxygen, the result of heavy snow on top of a layer of ice preventing sunlight from reaching the James River.
Locals like Scott Bell, who posted a TikTok video of the winter kill that went viral that weekend, contend the rock quarry that fills the once-deadly dam trapped the fish and prevented them from reaching more oxygenated waters. This idea has support from Solomon David, an aquatic ecologist at Louisiana-based Nicholls State University.
"Seeing the James River incident … When those pictures came up, I was like 'Holy cow, that's a lot of gar,'" David told Argus Leader on Jan. 30. "That struck me as odd, too, because they're such resilient and robust fish. You really need kind of an incident to have that many die off."
While the reasons behind the fish kill may be up for debate, Huron residents and fishery experts alike generally agree the event was a catalyst that brought a diverse mix of South Dakota's racial communities to a single fishing spot, where a cultural ecosystem comprised of Asian, Black and white anglers played out in real-time.
It wasn't a picture-perfect image of racial harmony, however; when white fishers discard a perfectly good fish like gar, David said that's evidence some societal ley lines have yet to be crossed.
When life gives you lemons, bring a bucket
Kiso Wasesa heard about the fish kill from his girlfriend, who lives in Huron. Initially, he couldn't - and didn't - believe what his partner was telling him.
But he was intrigued nonetheless, and after seeing photos of the piles of dead fish on social media, he decided to drive to Huron to see it for himself.
Striking out alone on a Friday night, he arrived to a fishing frenzy on the James River. The town's Asian American community had already been carrying bucket loads of carp and gar from stream to shore for several hours.
"I was like, 'Wow!'" Wasesa said. "I wanted to carry some, but I didn't have a bucket … so I had to go to Walmart and buy some."
Wasesa, a long-time resident of Sioux Falls, South Dakota, is a Black man closely embedded in the city's BIPOC community. Inflation, he said, is among the worst stressors for his friends.
"The price is too high" for fish these days, Wasesa said.
For fresh fillets of salmon, enough to feed one person, he's found himself paying $20 to $25. High food prices coupled with home heating expenses and South Dakota weather in general makes for a tough winter, he added.
But in the fish kill, Wasesa saw an opportunity. He reached out to his community through social media and relayed a message: Buy a bucket, buy a net and go to Huron.
When the Paste BN Network arrived at the Third Street Dam winter kill on Jan. 24., Wasesa and three Black anglers set up shop on the west side of the James River. Standing before the rock quarry with their eyes on the aquatic quarry below, they trolled their hand-held nets in the waters past the ice's edge. Wasesa's advice, you could tell, was swiftly heeded. Some of the nets still had price tags hanging from their webs.
Most netting attempts scored a fish within a matter of seconds, which was then promptly placed in one of multiple nearby drum buckets. Within half an hour, however, those buckets were reasonably filled, and plastic laundry hampers, bowls− almost anything large enough to hold a fish − was used as makeshift storage.
White colonists left enduring mark on native fish species
As Jim Dykestra, a white Beadle County, South Dakota, farmer, observed the diverse group of anglers hunt off the frozen, nature-made pier, he aired his puzzlement.
"I don't know what they're going to do with those fish," he said. "They're pretty bony."
Dykestra, a long-time resident of Huron, standing from a concrete, man-made wall on the opposite end of the colloquial "Jim River," recalled the days of his youth, when his father took him fishing at the very same spot decades ago. It was a popular fishing spot back then, and a decent locale to bring home some walleye for supper, he remembered.
That was until the city filled the dam with rocks a few years ago, Dykestra said, which discouraged fish from lingering at that particular section of river.
And this came before several varieties of carp invaded South Dakota's waterbodies, which the Minnesota Department of Natural Resources says occurred in the 1970s.
Nowadays, most people fish along the riverbanks upstream, he said, although the bites are sparser and, sometimes, you end up hooking a silver or bighead carp or a species of gar, or what he called a "rough fish."
This term, "rough fish," is part of a racially biased vocabulary among the predominantly white fishing community, according to David, the fisheries expert who also runs Nicholls State University's Gar Laboratory.
The term, David explained, has its genesis in the commercial fishing industry of the 18th century, when boats needed to meet certain weight requirements during the summer months and less desirable fish were "rough-dressed." That means they were partially processed and thrown overboard, while more valuable fish were dressed and kept on board.
According to a 2021 research paper from the American Fisheries Society, which David contributed to, European and white males have historically dominated the fisheries science in the U.S. Early fishery organizations, including the aforementioned society, laid the foundations of the nation's management systems for freshwater fish, David said. However, since their contemporary leadership entirely or nearly-entirely comprised of white men, they followed a distinctly Euro-centric view.
Certain species of fish familiar to white colonists ― salmon, trout and black bass ― therefore became a priority for better management and care in America's lakes and streams.
"Other fish, even if they're native fish, if they weren't as appealing to those groups, then they were considered 'trash fish' or 'rough fish,'" David said.
While the function of these early organizations was vital to providing the laying the groundwork of fisheries management policies in America, David said the lack of non-white representation in their leadership contributed to the creation of a damaging value system among fish that continues to affect public opinion and policy for these fish today, including some of which are native to the U.S.
"The term 'rough fish' exemplifies this problem. It is a derogatory term that lumps together diverse fish and life‐history strategies perceived as having low‐to‐zero value," the research paper reads. As a result of this value system, David said people of color generally became associated with America's low-value fish and vice-versa.
"When you hear something being called trash or garbage or rough, or you know, [when it has] this negative connotation … and it's something that you've grown up with as part of your culture or has been a valuable part of your own upbringing, then it does something … to make some aspect of your history or upbringing seem bad or wrong or devalued," David said. "If you think about this from an Indigenous perspective, there are lots of Indigenous groups that hold these native fish in very high esteem."
'Problematic policies' in South Dakota's legislature
While common carp, like those found in the Huron fish kill, are an invasive species that can be destructive to the habitats they invade, David said shortnose gar and longnose gar are two species of native fish that are beneficial to South Dakota's waterbodies, but have been historically considered a "rough fish."
Because of their association to this label, these fish have been subject to "problematic policies" that have permeated law systems nationwide.
One of those policies is bag limits on "rough fish." In all 50 states, bag limits allow for more than 10 "rough fish" to be caught per day, while 43 states allow for an unlimited amount of at least one species of "rough fish" to be caught. Two states allow anglers to take a "functionally unlimited" number of "rough fish."
David said allowing for unlimited take of "rough fish" like gar, which prey on carp, toes the line with throwing the local aquatic ecosystem out of balance, if enough fish are removed.
According to the 2022 Fishing Handbook, South Dakota considers all fish species that are not game or bait fish as "rough fish" and allows for an unlimited number of these fish to be taken. Some aquatic species, like catfish, fall under this umbrella when fished from inland waters along the Missouri River, and there are zero take restrictions on "rough fish" in all in-state lakes and streams.
"If there aren't predators to keep [prey fish] in check, you could get population explosions, which could in turn lead to other die-off, or it could lead to disease spreading," David said. "Is that good stewardship of natural resources where you can basically kill something in an unlimited fashion?"
David said the unlimited take also exemplifies the lacking management of gar fish, adding it could set up problems for conservation and ecosystem functions down the line, but also, because it represents a lack of understanding of the fish itself.
According to the American Fisheries Society, significantly fewer studies have been conducted on "rough fish" compared to common game fish in the U.S.
Just as well, the use of pejoratives remain part of the language of some state legislatures. According to the AFS paper, a majority states have adapted the term "other fish," while some use the terms "nongame fish" and "forage fish."
Only a few states continue to use the racially biased term "rough fish." In South Dakota law, the term "rough fish" is ubiquitously peppered throughout the legislature's related Administrative Rules, which serves as the foundation for the state Department of Game, Fish and Parks' bag limits, as well as the annual fishing handbook.
The Paste BN Network reached out to the department with questions regarding whether the department is aware of the racial connotations of the term "rough fish" and if the department includes BIPOC perspectives in its decision-making. Officials with the GFP were not immediately available for comment.
David, who also serves on AFS' Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee as a co-chair, said he didn't see many people of color involved in fisheries or conservation while growing up as a south Asian person in the U.S., a fact he attributes to the Euro-centric foundation of the field.
Between the negative connotations attached to native fish and which people of color have been lumped into, and the use of these value-based terms, he said Euro-centric views "definitely" worked against retaining and recruiting useful Asian, Black and Indigenous perspectives.
"I mean, Indigenous peoples are anglers and fishers. Black people are anglers and fishers. Asians are anglers and fishers. Fish is one of the most widely utilized sources of protein in the world," David said. "A diverse group of people use these resources, but when you think about representation in the profession here in the United States as the perspective I'm speaking from, you don't see a lot of Black, Indigenous persons of color in the field, and that's coming from a perspective as a brown person."
We're wrong about gar
Back on the frozen waters of the James Water, this subconscious, race-based dychotomy was played out by the three white spear-fishers, whose single cooler contained a handful of the less prevalent walleye that happened to stray downstream, whereas the hundreds of carp corpses and rock-gored gar were strewn along the dam.
Of the carp and gar caught by the white anglers, they lay in piles behind the trio, ready for pick-up by the group of Asian American bystanders. One of the anglers mentioned they were glad someone else was getting use out of the fish.
Meanwhile, Dykestra, the white Beadle County farmer, said he was happy to see people "using what nature provided," although he wasn't sure how much use they'd get out of the bony, tasteless gar and carp passed up by the white fishers.
Bell, the white Huron resident whose TikTok video garnered attention nationwide and reached scientists like David in Louisiana, also wasn't sure if gar were edible. Neither was Dave Bartel, the white manager of the James River Water Development District, who called gar "a real bony fish and pretty worthless in the long run."
And Wasesa admitted he thought the same at one point, until his girlfriend made a rich sushi dish out of the fish.
These misconceptions about gar, David said, are emblematic of the systemic disconnect with the age-old environmental policies that inform today's practices.
For one, he said gar aren't all that bony and are entirely edible. In fact, gar have less bones in their muscles than the popular fishing fare of salmon and walleye.
As someone who spends his time raising awareness for ― and making "GAR-reat" puns about ― this underdog fish, David said he'll be the first to tell you: Gar are actually tasty.
"You can learn how to eat these fish. It's eating fish. It's not building a rocket or something like that, you know?" David said.
Dominik Dausch is the agriculture and environment reporter for the Argus Leader and editor of Farm Forum. Follow him on Twitter and Facebook @DomDNP and send news tips to ddausch@gannett.com.