New Brunswick Is Telling Anglers to Kill Invasive Bass — Here Is Why I Support Protecting Native Wildlife

 Nature and Wildlife Advocate — New Brunswick

New Brunswick has introduced a fishing rule that might sound shocking when you first hear about it:

Catch certain invasive fish, and you cannot put them back.

Beginning April 1, 2026, recreational anglers in New Brunswick became subject to mandatory-retention rules for five invasive fish species in designated parts of the province: black crappie, chain pickerel, largemouth bass, muskellunge and smallmouth bass.

For largemouth bass specifically, mandatory retention applies in the Restigouche, Chaleur, Miramichi, Southeast, Inner Bay of Fundy and Upper Saint John Recreational Fishery Areas.

If an angler catches one there, the fish cannot simply be released.

I understand why that makes some people uncomfortable.

I am a nature and wildlife advocate. I believe animals deserve respect, and normally I strongly support allowing wildlife to live naturally with as little unnecessary human interference as possible.

But invasive species present us with an extremely difficult conservation problem.

Sometimes protecting nature means making decisions we would rather not have to make.

The Fish Isn't the Villain

I think this is the first thing we need to understand.

A largemouth bass did not wake up one morning and decide to invade New Brunswick.

It did not choose to be introduced into a watershed where it did not naturally belong.

People are responsible for moving invasive species around.

Whether through intentional introductions, illegal stocking, releasing unwanted animals or accidentally transporting organisms between bodies of water, human actions can introduce species into ecosystems that developed without them.

So I don't like portraying invasive animals themselves as villains.

They are doing exactly what every wild animal does—trying to survive.

The problem is what can happen to the ecosystem around them.

Why New Brunswick Is Taking Action

The Government of New Brunswick says invasive fish can compete with native species for food and can prey upon native species, disrupting the ecological balance of waterways.

That is why the province has adopted mandatory retention in areas where these fish are not considered established.

The purpose is important.

This is not supposed to be about encouraging people to kill fish for entertainment.

It is an attempt to prevent invasive populations from becoming established in additional watersheds.

That distinction matters to me.

Once an invasive fish population becomes firmly established and begins reproducing throughout a large watershed, eliminating it can become extraordinarily difficult.

Prevention and early intervention can therefore be extremely important.

Native Wildlife Has a Right to Our Protection Too

When people hear about killing an invasive fish, the discussion naturally focuses on that individual animal.

I understand that.

But as a conservation advocate, I also have to think about everything else living in that ecosystem.

What happens to the smaller native fish being eaten?

What happens when native fish have to compete with a new predator for food?

What happens to aquatic insects?

What happens to amphibians?

What happens to the birds and mammals that depend upon native fish populations?

An ecosystem is interconnected.

Introducing another predator can potentially affect much more than the species immediately interacting with it.

That is why invasive-species management is not simply about deciding which animal we like better.

It is about protecting an ecosystem that existed before humans introduced something new into it.

There Is Another Side to This Debate

I also understand why some anglers may question these rules.

Bass are popular sport fish.

People enjoy catching them. Recreational fisheries can become culturally and economically important. Once people have spent years fishing for a species, they may no longer think of that animal as invasive.

That creates a difficult conflict.

A species can have recreational value to humans while still being non-native to a particular ecosystem.

Those two things can be true at the same time.

Research from the University of New Brunswick examining invasive largemouth bass in the Wolastoq/Saint John River has discussed exactly this challenge: invasive sportfish can acquire significant social value, creating pressure on wildlife managers who are simultaneously trying to minimize ecological impacts.

That is why these decisions need to remain rooted in science rather than popularity.

There Is an Important Limitation to the Rule

I also think people need to understand that the provincial policy is more targeted than some headlines might suggest.

New Brunswick isn't saying every largemouth bass everywhere in the province must automatically be killed.

The mandatory-retention requirement applies to specific invasive species within specified Recreational Fishery Areas where the province says those species are not currently established.

That makes sense as an invasive-species strategy.

If a species suddenly appears somewhere it isn't established, that is exactly when authorities need information.

New Brunswick therefore asks anglers who catch one of these fish under the mandatory-retention rules to report the catch immediately, including the location, photographs and GPS coordinates where possible.

That information could be extremely valuable.

One fish might tell wildlife officials that an introduction has occurred.

Several catches from the same location could indicate something much more serious.

Anglers effectively become another set of eyes monitoring New Brunswick's waterways.

If We Have to Kill Wildlife, It Must Be Humane

This is something I feel strongly about.

Calling an animal invasive does not give us permission to make it suffer.

If regulations require anglers to retain and euthanize a fish, it should be done as quickly and humanely as possible.

The Government of New Brunswick specifically provides instructions for humane euthanasia and says retained fish should be quickly euthanized.

That is an important part of responsible wildlife management.

Respect for wildlife should not disappear simply because an animal happens to be an invasive species.

The Bigger Issue Is Preventing Introductions

There is something else I don't want people to miss.

We can order anglers to remove invasive fish after they appear, but that doesn't solve the original problem:

How did they get there?

We need to take illegal introductions extremely seriously.

Moving fish from one body of water to another can have consequences lasting generations.

Someone might think releasing a few bass into a lake will create a great fishing spot.

But that person doesn't own the ecosystem.

They don't have the right to make that ecological decision for everyone else—and certainly not for the native wildlife already living there.

Once those fish reproduce and spread into connected waterways, reversing the damage may be impossible.

The same principle applies to other invasive species.

Prevention will almost always be better than trying to repair an ecosystem afterward.

Conservation Is Not Always Comfortable

Nature conservation is sometimes presented as simply planting trees, protecting beautiful landscapes and saving animals.

Those things are certainly part of it.

But real conservation can be much more complicated.

Sometimes one species threatens another.

Sometimes an animal that people love is living somewhere humans introduced it.

Sometimes wildlife managers have to choose between protecting individual animals and protecting an entire ecosystem.

Those decisions should never be made casually.

They should be based on evidence, ecological monitoring and the best available science.

And government should continue explaining that science to the public.

If New Brunswick expects anglers to kill a fish they might otherwise photograph and release, those anglers deserve to understand exactly why they are being asked to do it.

Protect What Naturally Belongs Here

My priority as a nature and wildlife advocate is protecting New Brunswick's ecosystems and the native species that depend upon them.

That means protecting forests.

Protecting wetlands.

Protecting rivers.

Protecting wildlife corridors.

Protecting native fish.

And yes, sometimes it means controlling invasive species.

I don't celebrate the killing of an invasive fish.

I don't think we should.

Every one of those fish is simply trying to survive.

But we also cannot ignore the native wildlife that may suffer because humans introduced another species into its habitat.

There is a lesson here much bigger than largemouth bass:

Human beings need to stop moving wildlife around as though ecosystems are ours to redesign.

Every river has an ecological history.

Every lake is a community.

Every species interacts with others.

When we introduce something new, we may start a chain of events that cannot easily be reversed.

So if you catch one of the invasive species covered by New Brunswick's mandatory-retention rules, follow the regulations, report the location and handle the animal humanely.

But more importantly, let's work toward preventing these introductions from happening in the first place.

Because the best invasive-species management program is the one we never need to use.

Keith Dennis Brewer
Nature and Wildlife Advocate
New Brunswick, Canada