At the request of agencies in Oregon and Washington hoping to protect endangered salmon, NOAA recently approved the removal of up to 60 sea lions near Bonneville Dam to reduce unnatural predation on salmon stocks as they pass through the dam’s fishway.  You can read more about the issue in a blog post I wrote a short while ago regarding this issue.   You can also read the full news story here.

The New Mexico Game and Fish Department is planning to stock about 2,000 Rio Grande cutthroat trout next month in McLure Reservior, in Santa Fe.

The Rio Grande cutthroat, which is a subspecies of cutthroat trout, is native to the Southwest, and is the state fish of New Mexico.  Like most native trout in the West, the occurrence of Rio Grande cutthroat trout has declined as a result of human impacts in the form of habitat degradation and nonnative species introductions. 

A recent effort by New Mexico Fish Game and Fish involves restoring these native fishes by stocking them in lakes and streams, and removing nonnative species.  For the McLure Reservoir project, biologists will stock cutthroats within the next month, and return next spring to capture nonnative rainbow trout via electrofishing and remove them from the area. 

Removing rainbow trout is a very important part of the project because rainbows and cutthroats spawn at the same time and tend to hybridize, or crossbreed, with each other, which can then compromise the genetic integrity of the native fish.  In addition, rainbow trout and cutthroat trout share similar diets and occupy the same areas in streams, which provides the potential for competition between the two species.  More serious competitors with cutthroat trout are brown trout and brook trout, but neither of these species can hybridize with cutthroat trout.

The Rio Grande cutthroat trout was petitioned for listing under the Endangered Species Act by environmental groups in 1998.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service determined that the available information did not warrant listing of the species, and the issue has been tied up in the courts ever since.  The USFWS is currently conducting another status review on the species.

Hopefully the McLure Reservoir project will prove to be successful, and if not, it may provide an important learning experience for those interested in native species recovery. 

Read more about Rio Grande cutthroat trout on the Santa Fe National Forest website.

This just in.  A lawsuit from special interest groups has caused the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to reconsider the listing of Bonneville cutthroat trout under the Federal Endangered Species Act.  The Center for Biological Diversity, Biodiversity Conservation Alliance, and Pacific Rivers Council introduced the suit, citing that the trout are headed for extinction.  This comes after a 2001 decision by the USFWS that the status of the subspecies did not warrant listing.

Bonneville cutthroat trout are native to the Bonneville Basin, which encompasses most of the state of Utah, and parts of Wyoming, Idaho and Nevada.  The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources estimates that the species has been reduced to about a third of their historic range.

State agencies have been working hard to preserve and restore cutthroats and their habitat to avoid federal listing, which would bring in added restrictions that would potentially hinder many activities in the state.

I work in the Logan River in northern Utah, which supports one of the few remaining healthy meta-populations of native Bonneville cutthroat trout.  My research is focused on brown trout, which compete with Bonneville cutthroats in parts of the Logan, and I’m interested in understanding the environmental factors that give cutthroat trout an edge over the brown trout in the river, and allow cutthroats to persist in the higer elevation areas of the Logan.  This research is funded primarily by the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, which is certainly motivated to protect cutthroat trout to prevent ESA listing.  

I’m not sure exactly what the specifics of the potential listing would entail.  The real question to ask, in my opinion, is how the subspecies would benefit from federal listing.  Additional federal funds would certainly be helpful, but would the benefits of additional money be offset by the potential hindrances caused by further federal control over private property? 

Tom Remington consistently addresses such issues related to the Endangered Species Act at his Black Bear Blog. 

Whether or not listing is deemed necessary, hopefully we can continue to find solutions that benefit both trout and people in the long run, and restore the Bonneville cutthroat trout in an acceptable manner. 

Wild populations of native brook trout have been on the decline in many parts of the eastern United States for decades.  While some strongholds for the species exist, particularly in northern Maine, and restoration efforts such as those in the Smoky Mountains have been successful, wild brook trout remain imperiled or even nonexistent in many parts of their native range.

Because of the rarity of native brook trout waters in much of the East, state conservation programs have been working hard at restoring the species and protecting habitat in special wild trout waters.

One such water has been known to Pennsylvania angler Mark Rinehamer for decades, but his recent concerns for one of the area’s few remaining wild brook trout creeks caused him to contact Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission biologists to take a look at the creek.

And it turns out that the Commission biologists took an interest in this creek, and plan to make it part of their Cooperative Habitat Improvement Program. 

Check out the story here. 

And if you know of a particular area that may be important for fish conservation, or looks like it might be impaired, be sure to contact your local fisheries biologist.  These guys often have so much water to keep track of, and this results in some waters being overlooked at times.  Good communication between anglers and fisheries professionals is often key to preserving our valuable fish resources.

Recent research from Oregon State University has raised a considerable amount of concern about the role of hatchery fish and their use in salmon recovery efforts.

The study has shown that domesticating salmon in the hatchery environment can significantly reduce their reproductive potential, so that individuals do not contribute to future generations nearly as much as wild fish do. 

While the study calls to question the role of hatchery fish in recovery, I think that hatchery salmon still play a significant role in providing a sport fishery, and buffering the impacts of angling on wild salmon.

Concerns about the genetic (and other) consequences of mixing hatchery and wild salmon may become even more considerable as a result of this work.  But I think the real question is whether or not we can even recover wild salmon without the help of hatcheries, especially considering the incredibly high percentage of hatchery fish making up many of our salmon runs on both coasts.

Full story from Science Daily

Montana fisheries biologists are trying to determine the effects of nonnative lake trout in Swan Lake, located in the northwestern part of the state.  The lake is home to native bull trout, which usually suffer declines in the presence of lake trout.  In fact, the lake supports one of the only remaining sport fisheries for bull trout.  Lake trout were discovered in the lake in 1998, and they are expected to have a significant negative effect on bull trout, likely through both competition for food and space, and predation on bull trout by lake trout. 

Biologists will use trap nets and gill nets to capture lake trout.  After collecting data, they will place a mark on each fish and release it, which will allow them to estimate the population when they return and sample the lake again.  They also plan to place radio tags in a subsample of lake trout so that they can track their locations during the upcoming spawning season.  Identifying lake trout spawning areas can be very crucial in designing capture methods to control the lake trout population. 

Read more here

A number of lakes in the West have been affected by nonnative lake trout, including Yellowstone Lake in Wyoming, and Lake Pend O’reille in northern Idaho.  In Yellowstone, an intensive gill netting regiment on lake trout spawning grounds in the fall is allowing biologists to keep populations at a level where native Yellowstone cutthroat trout can persist.  In Lake Pend O’reille, recent research is showing that the combination of an incentive program (anglers are paid $15 for every lake trout they kill) and a commercial trap netting operation for lake trout have the potential to drastically reduce lake trout populations to the point where they have little effect on kokanee and bull trout.  Hopefully Montana biologists will  be able to use the scientific data provided in recent research projects on these lakes and others throughout the West to implement strategies to protect their native trout.

The Apache trout, native to the southwestern U.S., may soon become the first fish species ever to be removed from the Endangered Species List as a result of successful recovery.  Conservation efforts have raised the number of pure, self sustaining populations of Apache trout to 26, four short of the 30 required to begin the delisting process and officially declare the species recovered. 

The story of the Apache trout’s peril is similar to that of most other trout in the West.  Early development in the way of farming and ranching changed the habitat in low elevation areas, causing many streams to be unsuitable for trout.  As the trout continued to be forced out of low areas affected by humans, government officials began stocking nonnative fish such as brown trout, brook trout and rainbow trout in mountain streams, where they competed with the native fish.

Recovery for Apache trout began in the 1960’s and ’70’s, when it was first listed as endangered and later downlisted to threatened status, where it currently presides.  Efforts to bring the fish back to some resemblence of their former status have included fishing closures, habitat improvement, and nonnative species removal.

Of these efforts, I tend to believe that the removal of nonnative species has been the most effective strategy for recovering these fish.  These removal efforts are often called ‘reclamation projects’, where all fish are killed via chemicals that remove oxygen from the stream.  After effective barriers are put in place to keep nonnative fish from moving back into sections of streams, these areas are stocked with native trout.  Four such projects are ongoing in Arizona to help recover the Apache, and all are expected to be stocked with the natives early next year.

See the Apache trout success story here   

Lots of trout recovery stories have been in the news in the past few months, including the opening of fishing seasons for Gila trout in the southwest, and brook trout in the Smoky Mountains.  Hopefully this trend continues, since healthier fish populations mean good things for anglers and conservationists alike.

See the details of two fish ladder improvements at dams on Oregon’s Schooner Creek.  The projects should help more trout and salmon access stream habitat above the dams.

Check out this recent article by the Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies about Colorado cutthroat trout restoration activities.

A cooperative project aimed at restoring native brook trout in Wisconsin’s Trout Creek (Brown County) is slowly making progress, after being in the planning stages for some time.  Nearby, stream habitat has been improved, but the main obstacle for trout re-colonization after a 30 year hiatus, is a barrier dam at the 17th hole of a golf course that Trout Creek runs through. 

Officials have considered multiple options, including creating a fish ladder at the dam, or channeling water around the pond for fish passage to the stream above.  The golf course operator is willing to cooperate, but wants to preserve the aesthetics of the 17th hole.  Project completion is still quite a ways out, with potential for trout reintroduction as early as 2009. 

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