04-28-2021, 03:31 PM
Thanks for the feedback. It seems there's still a few lingering questions. I know it's hard to change minds on these types of things, especially when passion runs strong. I'll offer a few other perspectives from different angles.
There should be no short-term impacts to the Bear Lake fishery either. As stated in the bullets, it's expected the transfer portion of the project will amount to about 1% of the lake trout population. When we conduct gill net surveys, the smallest change we can reasonably detect in a population is + or - 10%, so its very unlikely we will be able to detect any change in the Bear Lake lake trout population. It's just as unlikely anglers will notice any difference in the population as well.
The benefit to the Bear Lake fishery from the this project is we get a good look at the status of the lake trout population in the lake. Because lake trout are a large predator, they can really impact a system if their population gets out of balance. Everything appears to fine with Bear Lake right now based on Scott's netting surveys, but it's good to do a more in-depth check every couple decades and make sure things are what we think they are. This is just part of the necessary monitoring when the goal is to comanage a fishery for both lake trout and native fish found no where else in the world. Doesn't seem like a big benefit I know, but is it necessary that every project have large direct benefits to the fishery? Sometimes it can be good to help others when it's not anticipated to have any negative impacts to our fishery.
Regarding Utah stocking lake trout the last 3 years - this was our choice. We have more stringent state fish health codes and preferred to use a stock of our own fish. Idaho cooperatively manages the lake with UT and helps out in many ways, including fish surveys, stream restoration, etc. They were happy to continue stocking the lake with sterile lake trout if we were supportive of it. One side benefit for us is that developing our own lake trout brood has allowed us to branch out and begin introductions of sterile lake trout in other fisheries such as Causey and Stateline Reservoirs. It might seem like a small thing, but both reservoirs are capable of producing large fish in unique settings in time.
There should be no short-term impacts to the Bear Lake fishery either. As stated in the bullets, it's expected the transfer portion of the project will amount to about 1% of the lake trout population. When we conduct gill net surveys, the smallest change we can reasonably detect in a population is + or - 10%, so its very unlikely we will be able to detect any change in the Bear Lake lake trout population. It's just as unlikely anglers will notice any difference in the population as well.
The benefit to the Bear Lake fishery from the this project is we get a good look at the status of the lake trout population in the lake. Because lake trout are a large predator, they can really impact a system if their population gets out of balance. Everything appears to fine with Bear Lake right now based on Scott's netting surveys, but it's good to do a more in-depth check every couple decades and make sure things are what we think they are. This is just part of the necessary monitoring when the goal is to comanage a fishery for both lake trout and native fish found no where else in the world. Doesn't seem like a big benefit I know, but is it necessary that every project have large direct benefits to the fishery? Sometimes it can be good to help others when it's not anticipated to have any negative impacts to our fishery.
Regarding Utah stocking lake trout the last 3 years - this was our choice. We have more stringent state fish health codes and preferred to use a stock of our own fish. Idaho cooperatively manages the lake with UT and helps out in many ways, including fish surveys, stream restoration, etc. They were happy to continue stocking the lake with sterile lake trout if we were supportive of it. One side benefit for us is that developing our own lake trout brood has allowed us to branch out and begin introductions of sterile lake trout in other fisheries such as Causey and Stateline Reservoirs. It might seem like a small thing, but both reservoirs are capable of producing large fish in unique settings in time.