Page 66 - Flathead Beacon // 12.25.13

66 | DECEMBER 25, 2013
FLATHEADBEACON.COM

OUTDOORS

PROTECTING

BULL TROUT

Conservation eforts

continue to save Glacier

National Park’s declining

bull trout population

A researcher nets lake trout on Quartz Lake in an
efort to suppress the exploding population and
preserve native bull trout
. PHOTO COURTESY OF CHRIS DOWNS

species.
ing they are accessible to lake trout, and Overall, 91 percent of radio-tagged
BIy TRISTAN SCOTT of the Beacon
An explosion of nonnative lake trout
nine have been invaded. Two more are at adult lake trout were removed from

n the past three decades, wild popu-
in Flathead Lake has decimated bull risk of invasion and a third has been in- Quartz Lake during gill netting opera-
lations of bull trout have sufered a trout populations for decades, out-com- vaded by brook trout.
tions in 2009, and 44 percent were re-
marked decline in Glacier National peting a species that would otherwise be In 2009, biologists with Glacier Park moved in 2010. All 11 radio-tagged lake
Park, historically one of the last best a top iconic predator in its indigenous and the U.S. Geological Survey began an trout tagged in 2011 and 2012 were
strongholds for the native Montana range. But the lake trout are steadily experimental project on Quartz Lake, caught and removed.
ish, which is listed as threatened un- overwhelming bull trout habitat, even which was still in its early stages of lake Now, biologists with both agencies
der the Endangered Species Act. But
in historic strongholds like the Flathead trout invasion, with the aim of reducing are looking to continue the federal pro-

even as invasive lake trout gnaw at the Basin.
or eliminating lake trout. The ish were gram on Quartz, located in the park’s
bull trout population, biologists believe Of the 17 lakes that support bull caught, radio-tagged and tracked to remote northwest corner, and apply the
that new conservation and management trout on the west side of Glacier Park, 12 spawning areas in order to capture and same method of lake trout removal to
eforts can help preserve the keystone
are connected to Flathead Lake, mean-
remove spawning lake trout.
Logging Lake, which was once among

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