Management of Yellowstone Lake Fisheries

Last night, fisheries biologists from Yellowstone National
Park and members of Wyoming Trout Unlimited gave a great
presentation on the Parks ongoing efforts to save and restore
native cutthroat trout populations. As some of you know, the
park has been waging an aggressive campaign to save the
Yellowstone lake cutthroat by killing invasive Lake Trout.

Lake Trout (mackinaw) were illegally introduced to
Yellowstone lake somtime in the ’80s and have dramatically
reduced the native cutthroat trout in the lake over the years.
Fortunately the Park is making progress fighting the invasion,
killing more and more Lakers over the years. Unfortunately
there’s a lot of misinformation out there waged by a select
few folks who like catching lake trout and have a surplus of
time on their hands. It’s clear that Lake trout are killing
Yellowstone cutthroat and wreck havoc on the entire
ecosystem; an ecosystem that depends on the Yellowstone
Lake cutthroat to thrive. I for one am glad the Park and its
supporters are working so hard to save and protect this
amazing fishery.

Also, the Park is in the process of restoring native
Grayling, Yellowstone and Westslope Cutthroat to a few select
streams in the park. Check out the link below to learn more
about the Parks management plan and learn facts about their
battle.

http://wyomingtu.org/wp-
content/uploads/2014/03/Science-Supporting-Management-of-
Yellowstone-Lake-Fisheries.pdf

Here’s a recent article by Ted Williams that appears in this
springs “Fly Rod and Reel Magazine”:

http://www.flyrodreel.com/node/25415