Review set for lake trout plan

The Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribes are launching a public review process for a controversial lake trout netting project for Flathead Lake, starting with upcoming meetings in Polson, Kalispell and Missoula.

Tribal spokesman Ron McDonald and Tom McDonald, the tribes’ division manager for fish, wildlife, recreation and conservation, visited with the Inter Lake editorial board Thursday to explain the purpose and process for a pilot netting plan.

The tribes propose to use angling and gill netting to remove 60,000 lake trout in 2010, 80,000 in 2011, and 100,000 in 2012. The proposal has triggered a wave of opposition already from anglers and others concerned about impacts to the lake trout fishery as well as the local economy.

But Tom McDonald said people misunderstand the proposal and how it came about.

He views it as a continuation of a lake trout suppression effort that has been under way for years under a 10-year co-management plan developed with Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks.

McDonald stressed that the plan was developed in 2000 after extensive public involvement and it has been gradually implemented with even more public input and supervision by a seven-person advisory board.

Lake trout suppression has included increased catch limits, allowing anglers to use two poles, and the Mack Days fishing tournaments with increasing prize purses for anglers and extended tournament periods.

“This is not new,” McDonald said of lake trout suppression.

That’s a major reason why the tribes intend to review the plan through an environmental assessment process rather than the often-more rigorous and time-consuming environmental impact statement process.

“We’re going to do a thorough scientific review in this EA,” McDonald said, adding that it will be as revealing and rigorous as many environmental impact statements. “It’s just that we end up with an answer quicker” than would happen through an EIS process.

Initial scoping meetings on the project are planned April 12 in Polson, April 13 in Kalispell and April 14 in Missoula. Times and locations have yet to be announced.

Those critical of the proposal, such as the Flathead Wildlife Inc. rod and gun club, have insisted that the tribes complete an environmental impact study. Flathead Wildlife’s leadership has even suggested legal action may be necessary to ensure that happens, particularly if federal funds are used to pay for the project.

But McDonald said he believes the tribes would prevail in any litigation and the project would be paid for by Kerr Dam mitigation funding rather than money from the federal Bonneville Power Administration.

It’s still unclear what degree of involvement Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks would have in the public review and project design process, but McDonald said the tribes have state support at the highest level.

“There’s been some reluctance to this at the Region One level, but the governor has stepped in,” said McDonald, who planned to meet with Fish, Wildlife and Parks Deputy Director Art Noonan on the project later in the day.

McDonald said some of the project’s harshest critics are certain the project will destroy the lake trout population.

“The bottom line is they don’t believe us. They think we’re going to collapse the fishery and we’re just not going to do that,” he said.

Flathead Lake’s lake trout population, estimated at about 400,000, is artificially inflated because of the introduction of mysis shrimp to the system over 30 years ago. The shrimp fueled a lake trout boom that in turn led to declines in native cutthroat trout, bull trout and a complete wipeout of kokanee salmon in the 1990s.

The loss of kokanee and the listing of bull trout as a threatened species have had profound economic impacts, McDonald said, and that is something that the project’s critics often don’t account for.

The bull trout listing has led to costly recovery efforts with far-reaching effects, even into areas such as the timber industry, and still there has been no measurable recovery in bull trout numbers.

“Why aren’t they coming back? Because of the lake trout,” McDonald said.

Lake trout have been a proliferating problem throughout the entire Flathead River drainage and downstream into the Clark Fork River system.

Ten of the 12 west-side lakes in Glacier National Park have been infested with lake trout, he noted, presenting further threats to bull trout recovery.

Even though a netting project would be aimed at further reducing lake trout numbers, McDonald said many critics do not understand that the co-management plan has provisions to ensure that the recreational fishery does not disappear.

Specifically, it calls for suppression efforts to be suspended if the annual number of angler fishing days drops below a certain threshold.

“In order for this to be successful, we need to have anglers forever,” he said. “The moment we dropped below recreation angling days, we’d stop immediately.”

McDonald also believes that a program designed to target smaller lake trout will lead to a more robust trophy fishery. And if the goal of a restored bull trout population is achieved, the effort may lead to anglers regaining opportunities to harvest trophy bull trout in the Flathead system.

McDonald said project critics raise many valid questions and concerns, and the environmental assessment will attempt to address them.

One question, for example, is whether netting projects have been successful elsewhere.

McDonald said Idaho pursued netting on Lake Pend Oreille in an effort to ensure that it would not lose its kokanee fishery to lake trout, as happened on Flathead Lake.

“Their netting program has seen rewards,” he said. “They are starting to see their spawning runs go up with kokanee.”

The Flathead lake trout suppression effort is aimed at making the same thing happen with bull trout, he said.

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