Tribes pull back on netting plan

Confederated Salish and Kootenai tribal officials said they are backing off plans for gill netting on Flathead Lake and are willing to consider other methods for suppressing lake trout.

About 150 people turned out for a scoping meeting Tuesday night at the Red Lion Hotel Kalispell, and similar meetings were held this week in Polson and Missoula. Tuesday’s meeting was led by tribal officials with a contingent of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks officials also on hand.

The meeting was part of a public review process that got under way this week.

Netting on the lake is an alternative but “it’s not the preferred alternative right now,” said Tom McDonald, division manager for tribal Fish, Wildlife, Recreation and Conservation. “It’s a clean slate.”

The tribes initially proposed to use angling and gill netting to remove 60,000 lake trout in 2010, 80,000 in 2011 and 100,000 in 2012.

Suppressing the lake trout population is intended to benefit native bull trout and cutthroat trout populations that have been in decline since the 1980s. Boosting those species is the central goal of a 10-year plan developed by the tribes and Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks in 2000.

Now an environmental assessment is being developed to define specific goals for the

suppression effort, such as the percentage of population reduction needed, how many years the effort should last and what methods should be used.

Barry Hansen, a tribal fisheries biologist, urged people at the meeting to concentrate their comments on those practical matters.

He said netting “has been put on hold because we want people’s input on how best to achieve these goals.”

One man at the meeting was skeptical that netting would not be pursued once the environmental assessment process is finished.

“I think the writing is on the wall that you are going to do netting,” he said.

Another man said the lake trout suppression efforts do not reflect the wishes of Montana anglers.

“I don’t think you are taking into account the feelings of most sportsmen in Montana,” he said.

Art Noonan, deputy director of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, said the environmental assessment process is intended to account for public opinion.

“How we are ignoring the people of Montana by holding a public meeting? I just don’t get it,” he said.

“I would like to see more bull trout and cutthroat trout in Flathead Lake,” said another man, but he questioned what the recovery targets are for those species.

“We don’t have hard targets,” Hansen responded. “The pilot project is designed to answer that critical question.”

Hansen led a fairly detailed technical presentation on the history of Flathead Lake’s fish populations and the science that has been developed on the lake over the last few decades.

Lake trout were introduced in 1905 and kokanee salmon were introduced in 1916. Bull trout and cutthroat trout populations remained healthy until mysis shrimp were detected in the lake in 1981.

The shrimp fueled a surge in the lake trout population, and by 1987, the kokanee fishery crashed due to predation by lake trout. In the early 1980s, bull trout were far more abundant in the lake than lake trout, but by the end of the decade there was a complete reversal between the two species, to a point where bull trout were listed as a threatened species by 1998.

The Flathead Basin’s bull trout population has been further damaged by lake trout invasions into other lakes, such as most of the west-side lakes in Glacier National Park.

There have been considerable and expensive efforts to improve and protect fisheries habitat throughout the basin over time, but there has not been a bull trout population recovery, Hansen said.

“It has become clear over time that the bottleneck is in Flathead Lake,” he said.

And that is what prompted the development of a co-management plan for the lake, with an emphasis on efforts to curb the competing lake trout population.

Those efforts have included allowing anglers to use two lines, $10 lake fishing licenses, increasing creel limits from 15 to 50, and most significantly, the Mack Days spring and fall fishing contests that have had increased prize purses over time.

Angling, however, has failed to reach the annual target of 60,000 fish estimated to be needed just to match annual lake trout reproduction, Hansen said.

At the end of Tuesday’s meeting, state and tribal officials took written comments that will be considered in developing a draft environmental assessment with several alternatives by July.

A tentative schedule calls for the selection of a preferred alternative in August, a final environmental assessment by Sept. 1 and a decision by Sept. 30.

The tribes are gathering further public comments online through a link at a Mack Days Web site: www.mackdays.com

Reporter Jim Mann may be reached at 758-4407 or by e-mail at jmann@dailyinterlake.com