Cutthroat Trout Conservation Project resumes
<p>Coeur d’Alene Tribe fisheries technician Bryan Harper shows off a pike he caught during the Cutthroat Trout Conservation Project last year. This year, researchers will see if the work relocating pike from Windy Bay to Cougar Bay was effective. The hope is the relocated pike have stayed in the north part of Lake Coeur d’Alene.</p>
PLUMMER — The Coeur d’Alene Tribe and Idaho Department of Fish and Game are resuming their Cutthroat Trout Conservation Project this month.
The project, which begins March 14 and runs for six weeks, aims to relocate pike — a predator of the cutthroat — from Windy Bay in Lake Coeur d’Alene to Cougar Bay to give cutthroats a better chance of survival as they migrate to and from Lake Creek to spawn. Information collected during the three-year project will help determine what may or may not be effective methods of conserving cutthroat populations in the future.
“A lot of what we are doing now is gathering data,” said Heather Keen, the public relations director for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe. “This will let us see what works and what doesn’t and help us create a management plan.”
IDFG biologists will catch pike with gill nets in Windy Bay before tagging them and transporting them to Cougar Bay.
“We’ve been able to find a good way to benefit the cutthroat population at the same time balancing the recreational angling part of this,” said Andy Dux, regional fishery manager for IDFG.
Angelo Vitale, fisheries program manager for the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, said the Tribe has been working for about 25 years to restore cutthroat habitat. The Tribe has a migration trap in Lake Creek that counts and tags youth and adult fish migrating to and from Lake Coeur d’Alene.
This is used to estimate survival rates of cutthroat in the area. The Bounty Program, which rewards anglers for their pike catches in the southern part of Lake Coeur d’Alene, is also still in motion through May 31.
About 10 or 15 years ago the Tribe began looking at the lake and found that, during a six-week period from March to May, pike prey on the cutthroat.
The conservation project started last year and yielded promising results. Last year's estimates show that a majority of pike in Windy Bay were removed and only 1 percent moved back after relocation. Based on the tags, many of the pike caught by anglers were in Cougar Bay. Officials say this means the relocation is working because pike are staying away from the spawning cutthroat near Lake Creek.
“This is one of the first examples of us working with the state and having our objectives align really well,” Vitale said. “This is a good collaboration.”
The Coeur d’Alene Tribe is attempting to restore the cutthroat population so it can open a harvest fishery to catch, harvest and eat cutthroat. The fish is historically significant for the Tribe as it was a major part of the Tribe’s diet and culture.
“Increasingly [cutthroat] are absent or face significant threats in their home range within the Tribe's cultural territories,” Vitale said. “Currently fishing regulations for cutthroat in the Panhandle generally allow for catch and release only, and this falls short of the Tribe’s goals for this native resource.”
All involved with the project have high hopes that the pike have not returned to Windy Bay. On Monday researchers will head out hoping to catch nothing but net.