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FWP says teams meeting to plan studies this year on Jefferson Basin trout decline – Daily Montanan [1]

['Blair Miller', 'More From Author', '- January']

Date: 2024-01-25  

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks said this week that the team of staff and Montana State University students that will study trout declines in the Jefferson Basin is in place and meeting to plan field work that will take place this year.

The department said it hired a Dillon-based fisheries technician who will work with FWP support staff and three doctoral students from MSU to study recreational use, trout mortality, and juvenile trout recruitment this year on the Big Hole, Beaverhead, Ruby, and Madison rivers.

“We’re looking forward to beginning this important field season this spring,” said Mike Duncan, the fisheries program manager for FWP in southwestern Montana. “We’re grateful for the partnerships that will make these studies possible as we work toward solutions to the issues we’re seeing for fish in the Jefferson Basin.”

FWP announced the studies and fish health monitoring efforts in the basin last July as locals pressed the government for action following significant declines in brown and rainbow trout populations in the four rivers over the past decade and trout appearing with mysterious lesions more recently on the Big Hole and Beaverhead.

“FWP has conducted health assessments in those rivers. However, disease in fish is a complex interaction among the fish host, potential pathogens and environment, which poses challenges in determining the primary cause of fish health issues,” FWP spokesperson Morgan Jacobsen said in a news release.

FWP said tissue from diseased fish are being examined by federal pathologists, and results should be available this winter so teams can figure out the next steps for testing. The department said current plans include more advanced molecular testing for fungi, bacteria and viruses in the spring, summer and fall on fish of all ages collected in the Big Hole and Beaverhead.

“It is also unclear whether the observed fungal infections or lesions are the primary cause or secondary effects of another disease,” FWP said. “Thus far, testing has not identified any bacteria or viruses that are common fish pathogens.”

Researchers have already identified the parasite that causes proliferative kidney disease in the basin and in many other Montana rivers, which led to a large fish kill in the Yellowstone in 2016. But FWP said the disease has not appeared in fish in the Big Hole River.

FWP said it had put together a work group of fish health experts, histopathologists, water quality specialists, microbiologists, fish physiologists and fish biologists from FWP, MSU, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Geological Survey, and Washington State University’s Animal Disease Diagnostic Lab.

“The workgroup will develop a proactive monitoring approach to characterize the relative contribution of potential stressors, including water quantity and quality, climate, and angling pressure that will be implemented this spring,” Jacobsen said.

Another group of locals from the basin, Save Wild Trout, is conducting studies as well on nutrient pollution, lower streamflows and warmer water temperatures and how they might be contributing to the fish decline there was well.

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[1] Url: https://dailymontanan.com/2024/01/25/fwp-says-teams-meeting-to-plan-studies-this-year-on-jefferson-basin-trout-decline/

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