Obsolete Christmas trees may make excellent habitats for fish, according to a government fisheries biologist in Florida.
A good idea is to tie a few trees together for density and anchor them between 1.5–3 metres below the surface.
“You’ve got dense cover, which is going to bring in small bait fish because they can hide in those areas and feed there and that’s going to bring your predator fish in there,” Nick Jamison, a fisheries biologist with the US Department of Natural Resources said to the Gainsville, FL, Times. “It’s a food chain effect”, he added.
He pointed out that ornaments and light should be removed before the discarded tree is securely anchored to the bottom – which is important, since the US Government does not want any debris haphazardly just floating around – but that it should not be completely de-needled.
The Department of Natural Resources and the US Army Corps of Engineers in earlier years ran a recycling program setting out out-of-season Christmas trees for fish to move into. Now, however, they use PVC plastics to that end, since that provides for a more permanent habitat.
“That’s a long-term solution,” Jamison said. “Christmas trees, you might get two years out of them, if you’re lucky. Once the needles fall off and they start to break down, they’re not going to hold fish anymore.”