Saving Bull Trout

Saving Bull Trout

David Sparks Ph.D.
David Sparks Ph.D.
In recent years, federal officials have expanded protections for waterways that are critical to the restoration of threatened bull trout. It has been reported that this action makes it tougher for agencies to approve logging, mining and livestock grazing across a large swath of federal land in the West. Federal rules issued by U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service represent a major expansion of the streams, lakes and reservoirs protected as critical habitat for the fish, primarily on federal lands in Oregon, Washington, Idaho and Nevada. So 19,000 miles of streams and 490,000 acres of lakes and reservoirs have been protected.

Bull trout are members of the salmon family known as char and are distributed farther north than any other group of freshwater fish except Alaskan Blackfish. They are well adapted for life in very cold water. They can grow to more than 20 pounds in lake environments. U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist Ted Koch explains the necessity for protections on bull trout: "Bull trout have the most specific habitat requirements of any trout or salmon native to the Pacific NW." That said, their numbers have declined about 60 percent, and they have disappeared from about half their historical range due to logging, mining, dam construction, and livestock grazing that have warmed and muddied the water it lives in

Bull trout are vulnerable to many of the same threats that have reduced salmon populations in the Snake River Basin. Due to their range of preferred cold water habitat conditions and life history requirements, bull trout are also more sensitive to increased water temperatures, poor water quality and degraded stream habitat than many other salmonids. Further threats to bull trout include hybridization and competition with non-native brook trout, brown trout and lake trout, overfishing, poaching, and man-made structures that block migration.

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