Plan would use poison to restore Yellowstone cutthroat trout | news

Because rainbows cross and produce hybridized “cut-bow” progeny, the preservation of the true Yellowstone cutthroat requires the maintenance of numerous populations that are isolated from other species. “Headwater isolation” is the agency’s preferred method of achieving the goal.

The strategy will use existing natural fish barriers and would require the construction of at least one man-made barrier. Ultimately, Yellowstone Cutthroat would only exist in the upper reaches of five lower bighorn basins, including four “meta-populations” where a number of tributaries and even lakes would host a thriving community.

“I think this will take several decades,” said Sam Hochhalter, regional fisheries overseer at the Game and Fish Department in Cody. His office had been trying for two years to integrate regional ideas into the plan, with good results, he said.

While Game and Fish has decades of wildlife statistics from the Cody region, there are only three biologists, according to Hochhalter. “The people who attended … represent centuries of knowledge,” he said. “They offered projects that weren’t on our radar.”

There are many reasons for the Yellowstone Cutthroat Trout to be conserved, including the fact that they were protected under the Endangered Species Act in the 1990s. Although the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service did not extend federal protection to the species, Yellowstone cutthroats remain concerned about habitat degradation, hybridization, and competition from alien fish.

Additionally, “Yellowstone cutthroat trout will be surfacing eagerly for a dry fly,” said Hochhalter. “It’s a pretty fun way to go fishing.

“You are a beautiful fish; the coloring on them is exquisite, ”he said, referring to a shade often called“ buttery ”. They also exist in a land populated by bighorn sheep, grizzly bears, and other symbols of enduring nature.

People appreciate trips to the mountainous landscape where these wildlife live “knowing that the fish have been swimming in these streams for thousands of years,” he said.

However, game and fish need to be sensitive to anglers, who value all wild fish, regardless of whether they are native to the area. Baking and horsepackers, for example, love brown trout because of their abundance and the ease with which they can be caught and made into a meal.

“Angler,” says Hochhalter, “likes this aspect of fishing for brown trout.”

But one guide cruising cutthroat waters in Yellowstone – Jackson’s Jean Bruun of the Wyoming Angling Company – said agencies and bureaucracies sometimes focus too much on one aspect of a problem.

“It’s easier to identify a single enemy and try to pool all of your resources, funds, and processes to fight that one enemy,” she said. “I think what we learned is there [is] much more than an enemy.

“I love and celebrate our natives [trout]but i love and celebrate [all] our wild populations, ”she said. For more than 100 years, locals and non-natives have been able to live “side by side” in the Yellowstone area.

Bruun’s respect for all wild fish and her reluctance to immediately point the finger at other species are views shared by her husband, a travel guide and newspaper columnist. The Yellowstone Cutthroat’s plight has “[e]very green activist, trout, water and chair biologist, sporting goods dealer, chamber of commerce type, outdoor editor, reporter and professional fundraiser … screaming, ”Paul Bruun wrote in 2014 in the Jackson Hole News & Guide.

Game and Fish heard screams when they wanted to implement the first of their restoration initiatives a few years ago, said Hochhalter. Game and Fish operated under a multi-state multi-agency agreement that was forged in 2000 after federal biologists deemed ESA protection unnecessary. Yellowstone cutthroats historically occupied parts of Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, and Utah.

The intergovernmental group continued to work after that federal ruling, Hochhalter said, but noted that the public was skeptical of poisoning and the removal of other species. “We were examined closely, suggesting that Game and Fish should be removed [too many] not native trout, that we just didn’t like brown trout, ”he said.

The agency formed a working group of residents with the aim of transparency. “We asked the public about their interests and concerns,” said Hochhalter. “We left it to them to familiarize themselves with the logistics and point us in the direction they thought.” [the best] Restoration.”

Ideas from seven workshops with 176 participants, including members of the East Yellowstone Chapter of Trout Unlimited, helped create the plan. After reading scientific literature, the resistance to poisoning among the members of the working group decreased, said Hochhalter. However, it took another two years of field research to confirm the validity of the working group’s proposals.

Most importantly, the plan includes portions of Bighorn Lake, Clarks Fork of the Yellowstone, Nowood, North Fork of the Shoshone, and South Fork of the Shoshone drainages as exclusive Yellowstone Cutthroat canned goods. In each of the five sub-basins, Yellowstone cutthroats will thrive in either five smaller isolated populations or a “meta” population. Meta-populations encompass several tributaries that depict the natural lifestyle of the species – including aspects such as migration and spawning.

All told, the plan would add approximately 125 miles to the exclusive habitat of the Yellowstone Cutthroat Stream, increasing the area from 185 miles to 310 miles in the basin. The plan would add 13 exclusive Yellowstone Cutthroat Lakes, increasing the number from four to 17.

According to calculations from the state plan, the exclusive acreage of Yellowstone Cutthroat Lake would expand from 56 to 355 acres, which corresponds to an increase of 299 acres. In the end, the Bighorn Basin would host 16 isolated populations and four meta-populations, an increase of nine and two, respectively.

Without human help, “current cutthroat trout populations cannot be considered safe or sustainable,” according to research.

Swim across the continental divide

In addition to its colorful cutthroat cut and ruddy cheeks, the Yellowstone cutthroat is known, according to scientists’ estimates, for swimming over the continental divide, perhaps over the Two Ocean Pass in the Teton Wilderness. Originally a Pacific type of drainage. The only places the species naturally occurred in the Atlantic drainage were in the drainage of the Yellowstone River, parts of Montana, and the Bighorn Basin.

Aside from striking colors and historical migrations, the species plays an important role in the ecosystem, providing food for 16 species of birds and mammals, including grizzly bears. Once the dominant species of fish in Yellowstone National Park, the numbers have declined.

The illegal introduction of lake trout into Yellowstone Lake has decimated a stronghold, according to the National Park Service. According to Yellowstone biologists, the number of Yellowstone cutthroats spawning in the Clear Creek tributary has decreased from 70,000 in 1978 to 538 in 2007.

Under the plan, Game and Fish would poison spring sanctuaries and then put genetically pure Yellowstone cutthroats back into the isolated segment. In such species protection plans, conservationists look for resilience, representation and redundancy. These parameters help ensure that a species persists, that it is genetically diverse and uses the landscape as it has evolved, and that a single, localized adverse event does not mean its doom.

Game and Fish examined nine basins before selecting the five targeted watershed areas that Yellowstone cutthroats faced, where physical barriers could isolate them from non-native species and to which the public can access.

Natural waterfall barriers exist in many places. But a reach would require a man-made structure and more resources that would take longer.

For guide Jean Bruun, the game and fish plan seems to strike a fair balance. “We dipped our shoes in many bodies of water,” she said, summarizing how international trade and travel have spread exotic and invasive species around the world.

However, for a successful plan, Game and Fish cannot enforce doctrine in a vast area. “Game and fish have to look at a watershed one at a time,” she said. “You can’t generalize.”

It is okay for game and fish to “identify where these” [Yellowstone] Genetics should be protected, ”she said. “We have a chance in these small areas.

“If these are habitable zones for them [Yellowstone] Fish – remove 100 rainbows from there to keep them from hybridizing – I don’t see a problem in that.

“We want to do everything we can to protect our wild trout populations,” she said, including creek, brown and rainbow populations. “We love our cutthroats – all of our cutthroats. They have been here for over 10,000 years and they belong here. You are my business partner. “

For Hochhalter, the formation of the working group – the first for a Wyoming fisheries project – disseminated good information and avoided the prospect of the public drawing conclusions from limited data and stereotypes. Ultimately, all of the proposed projects came from the working group, he said.

The public wants a variety of fishing opportunities and the ability to cast in different ways, he said. “They really want … to be able to fish for everyone.”