Park targets non-native fish species

By SCOTT McMILLION Chronicle Staff Writer

Yellowstone National Park officials want to let anglers kill more rainbow, brown and brook trout in the park's famous streams, they announced Monday.

Those species are not native to the park, and they don't always coexist well with increasingly rare native fish, particularly cutthroat trout.

"The park is proposing to reduce competition, predation and hybridization stress on native cutthroat trout and arctic grayling by increasing harvest limits for non-native trout species," chief fisheries biologist Todd Koel said in a press release.

Yellowstone officials could not be reached for further comment on Monday.

The release does not say how the harvest limits will be changed, only that the new rules "would continue to protect and enhance nonnative trout populations of the Madison, Firehole and lower Gibbon Rivers" as well in Lewis Lake and Shoshone Lake.

Those waters are popular with people who fish for brown or rainbow trout.

In addition to raising the creel limit, the Park Service also is proposing a barbless hook requirement to reduce the numbers of fish injured through catch-and-release angling, a common practice in the park today.

Current regulations call for all cutthroat trout to be released. Two rainbow and two brown trout of any size can be retained, with some exceptions. Five brook trout can be retained in most places, with some exceptions.

The park's Web site notes that lots of creatures rely on trout for food. Bears, osprey, pelicans, otters and others get preference over people who want a trout meal. Many of those species rely primarily on cutthroat trout.

Yellowstone cutthroat trout numbers are down dramatically in recent years. They've been hurt in Yellowstone Lake by both whirling disease and lake trout, though the park's Web site says it's hard to say which has done the most damage.

Any lake trout caught in Yellowstone Lake must be killed, the regulations say.

There will be a series of public meetings to explain the proposals and take comment on them.

They are scheduled as follows.

€ Bozeman, April 4, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., GranTree Inn.

€ West Yellowstone, April 5, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Holiday Inn Conference Hotel.

€ Jackson, Wyo., April 6, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Teton County Library.

€ Cody, Wyo., April 7, 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m., Holiday Inn.

€ Livingston, April 18, 6 p.m. to 8 p.m., Best Western Motel, 1515 West Park Street..

There is additional information on the Internet at http://www.nps.gov/yell/planvisit/todo/fishing/index.htm

Scott McMillion is at scottm@dailychronicle.com

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