Yellowstone National Park - In coordination with partner agencies Montana Fish, Wildlife &Parks, Wyoming Game &Fish Department, and the US Forest Service, has approved a project to remove nonnative brook trout from Soda Butte Creek and reintroduce Yellowstone cutthroat trout into the stream as part of continued efforts to restore Yellowstone's native fish population.
The Soda Butte Creek Native Fish Restoration Project will help restore an important fishery in upper Soda Butte Creek by protecting native cutthroat trout populations of the entire Lamar River watershed from future invasion by nonnative brook trout. This project is part of Yellowstone's 2010 Native Fish Conservation Plan to conserve native fish from threats of non-native species, disease, and climate. Under this proposal, biologists will remove brook trout by applying an EPA-approved piscicide (rotenone) to Soda Butte Creek upstream of Ice Box Canyon.
Pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, a draft Categorical Exclusion (CE) for this project was prepared and made available for public review from May 20 to June 19, 2015. The park received a total of 56 pieces of correspondence. In response to public comments concerning potential negative impacts to native Yellowstone cutthroat trout currently living in Soda Butte Creek, both Yellowstone National Park and Montana Fish, Wildlife &Parks will use electroshock fishing to remove cutthroat trout prior to the rotenone treatments. The salvaged cutthroat trout will be held within the Soda Butte Creek watershed and returned to the creek in the areas of Cooke City and Silver Gate following the rotenone treatments.
Cutthroat trout are the only trout species native to Yellowstone and were once the dominant fish species within the park prior to Euroamerican settlement. Native cutthroat trout are thought to be among the most ecologically important fish of the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and are highly regarded by anglers. Genetically pure Yellowstone cutthroat trout populations have declined throughout their natural range in the Intermountain West, succumbing to competition with and predation by nonnative fish species, a loss of genetic integrity through hybridization, habitat degradation and predation.
More information, including park responses to public comments, can be found in the final documentation on the National Park Service Planning, Environment, and Public Comment (PEPC) website, www.parkplanning.nps.gov/SodaButteCreekCE. Montana Fish, Wildlife &Parks also accepted comments on their plan and more information can be found at: www.fwp.mt.gov/news/publicNotices/environmentalAssessments/conservation/pn_0026.html.
An environmental compliance process culminating in a parkwide Native Fish Conservation Plan/Environmental Assessment (EA) was completed in 2010. This CE qualifies under the previously documented and approved adaptive management framework of that plan/EA, signed with a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) signed in May 2011.
- www.nps.gov/yell -
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