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Montana's headwaters are in hot water – Daily Montanan [1]

['More From Author', 'July', 'George Ochenski']

Date: 2023-07-28  

It’s not even August and Montana’s world-famous trout streams are being shut down due to low flows and high water temperatures — so high they severely stress or kill fish that rely on enough cold, clean water to survive. Given these are the headwater streams and rivers pouring off the snow-capped mountains of the Continental Divide, Montana is in hot water again — and that’s anything but good.

The list of rivers now being limited to “hoot owl” restrictions is long and growing quickly. Montana’s Department of Fish, Wildlife & Parks posts those closures and restrictions online at fwp.mt.gov/news/current- closures-restrictions/ waterbody-closures.

The Beaverhead, Big Hole, Bitterroot, Jefferson, Lower Madison, Ruby, and Sun Rivers are all too hot and too low to sustain trout. And that says nothing about the “species of concern” such as the last fluvial Arctic grayling in the Lower 48, quickly disappearing in the dewatered Upper Big Hole and the westslope cutthroat that should have been given Endangered Species Act protections, but were denied that by politically-directed agencies.

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2023/07/28/montanas-headwaters-are-in-hot-water/

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