Tribal council backs lake trout plan

The Confederated Salish-Kootenai Tribal Council is recommending that the most aggressive option for netting lake trout on Flathead Lake be adopted after a final round of public comment.

“The recommendation of the preferred alternative is the culmination of more than three years of careful analysis of current fisheries research, scientific study, and broad public scoping and comment periods, including a series of community meetings,” the tribes said in a Thursday press release.

The proposal to use gill nets to increase the harvest of lake trout from the lake for the benefit of native species such as the threatened bull trout has been controversial.

Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks has not participated in the development of a draft environmental impact statement, and the agency has expressed concerns about what netting may accomplish and what harm it might cause to the Flathead Lake ecosystem.

The tribal council recommends as its preferred alternative a plan aimed at reducing the population of adult lake trout by 75 percent over the long term, a period defined as 50 years.

That would involve removing up to 140,000 lake trout annually through recreational angling, ongoing spring and fall Mack Days fishing events and gill netting.

“Alternative D provides the greatest flexibility in Flathead Lake fisheries management,” the press release states. “The selection of this alternative does not obligate the harvest of a specific number of lake trout annually, but it rather determines that the impacts of doing so have been fully quantified.”

The 140,000-fish annual target “will not be pursued unless needed,” it states. “The specifics of the alternative, including timing, techniques, and personnel will be identified subsequently in a detailed implementation plan.”

The press release says the tribal council acted partly on the recent recommendation of the Flathead Reservation Fish and Wildlife Board to pursue any of the three options that go beyond status quo efforts to suppress the lake trout population.

It also states that public and agency comments received on the draft EIS “overwhelmingly favored the use of additional tools to reduce non-native lake trout abundance.”

The public will have another opportunity to comment when the Bureau of Indian Affairs releases a final environmental impact statement, and tribal officials will issue a final record of decision on the preferred plan after that comment period.

“The implementation of an adaptive management plan will ultimately guide which of the newly available suppression methods have the least by-catch of other fish species and are most compatible with the existing angler-based approaches used to balance the fishery as envisioned” under a co-management plan for the lake that expired in 2010, the release states.

A position statement from Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks says state officials believe the tribes are overestimating the benefits of the plan to bull trout and underestimating the impacts of a significant reduction in lake trout numbers.

Lake trout are the remaining sport fishery on the lake and a reduced population is expected to have economic impacts.

Supporters of the plan, however, say that lake trout already have caused considerable economic impacts because of their role in reducing bull trout and westslope cutthroat trout numbers as well as completely eliminating a once-vaunted kokanee salmon fishery.