05-06-2012, 10:00 PM
The letter below was posted in another public fishing forum, talking about this very subject, so I feel it is appropriate to add here. It covers many questions that have been raised here.
"We are actually working on a survey to decide some of the future management directions for Strawberry. And though a petition may help bolster some support for such a cause, unfortunately petitions do not get much of the needed information out to the public. I think we have discussed this with you in the past, we have a few concerns with what you are suggesting that I will reiterate.
First of all, we have limited production in our hatcheries, and with shrinking budgets and recent state audits, production will become more limited. Therefore we cannot increase production to add a species to our current stocking quotas.
Also, the cutthroat have proven to do a great job at keeping chubs under control, we cannot switch that program to another species at this point. Tigers have not proven that they can do the same job on chubs. The tigers in Scofield have not yet shown that they can do the same job. In addition, the tigers are not as easily caught by anglers. One of our many goals at Strawberry is to provide a fishery where people can expect high catch rates, and our experience at other reservoirs is that tigers do not provide this. Yes, many anglers do figure out how to catch them, but the average angler does not catch many. We also get a considerable amount of natural reproduction from the cutthroat (35% of our cutthroat population on average), and we would get none from the tigers. Basically we would have fewer fish in the reservoir as a result of switching cutthroat for tigers, again making chub control more difficult with tigers. We closely monitor the fish in Strawberry every year, and our cutthroat are looking great as far as condition, fat levels, and growth. Cutthroat often look skinny compared to some other fish, but that is how they naturally grow until they get to larger sizes when they put on more girth. Increasing in length faster than they put on girth is their strategy to become a more effective predator, and it works. However, you may have noticed that cutthroat numbers have declined somewhat in the last couple of years, and is due to a couple of year classes of stocked fish not surviving well. These stocked fish came in undersized, and many were eaten. Cutthroat numbers should be on the rebound over the next couple of years, and we need them for chub control.
One possibility would be to switch rainbow production for tigers. However, based on angler opinion surveys we regularly do at Strawberry, I do not think this would be a popular option. Most anglers want more rainbows, not fewer, or none if we made the switch. If angler opinion did show that they wanted tigers instead of rainbows, we could consider that option. However, in any king of survey or petition it would be necessary that the anglers were aware that they would be giving up rainbows to get the tigers.
As far as kokanee, there is not much to bargain with there. We only raise a few thousand pounds of kokanee (compared to 100,000 lbs of cutthroat and rainbows), and that would not be enough to stock the numbers of tigers we would need to show up in the creel.
Again, a petition would help gain some interest and support for such a change, but we have to look at the broader picture as well. We could not make any such changes unless there was considerable evidence that the switch would work for us biologically (chub control, and other such factors), would provide the desired fishery (high catch rates), is cost effective from a production standpoint, and is what the majority of the angling public wants (would need to be determined from a broader scale angler survey).
I hope this helps clarify our current position on this. And by no means am I anti-tigers (or anti- most fish species for that matter). They all have their place. Thanks for letting me comment.
Alan Ward
Strawberry Project Leader
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources"
A couple of extra points worth mentioning.
1. From the letter. " the cutthroat have proven to do a great job at keeping chubs under control, we cannot switch that program to another species at this point. Tigers have not proven that they can do the same job on chubs. The tigers in Scofield have not yet shown that they can do the same job."
I think that because tiger trout are named after a ferocious land mammal predator, people assume they are equally predaceous. While they may indeed serve a role in managing chubs, the biologists are currently unsure about their controlling abilities, while they are quite certain that Bear Lake cutts work well in this role.
2. I almost hate to bring it up, but Gmanhunter is right about the perch and chubs. All of the examples given by you guys where perch and chubs currently exist (Starvation, Jordanelle, Fish lake,etc) have the same situation of dwindling chub numbers. Starvation chubs now are all big, very old, and as TD's pictures show, often have sores and tumors on them. Jordanelle is not far behind. Their chubs are all big and old. (Big enough to regularly suck down a 4 inch stickbait) Fish lake chubs are now so rare that the Lake trout now eat rainbows instead.
That said, perch are a horrible idea for Strawberry. You are trading a currently well managed potential problem in our current state at Strawberry for an unmanageable problem that perch would represent. Let us pray that we never go there.
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"We are actually working on a survey to decide some of the future management directions for Strawberry. And though a petition may help bolster some support for such a cause, unfortunately petitions do not get much of the needed information out to the public. I think we have discussed this with you in the past, we have a few concerns with what you are suggesting that I will reiterate.
First of all, we have limited production in our hatcheries, and with shrinking budgets and recent state audits, production will become more limited. Therefore we cannot increase production to add a species to our current stocking quotas.
Also, the cutthroat have proven to do a great job at keeping chubs under control, we cannot switch that program to another species at this point. Tigers have not proven that they can do the same job on chubs. The tigers in Scofield have not yet shown that they can do the same job. In addition, the tigers are not as easily caught by anglers. One of our many goals at Strawberry is to provide a fishery where people can expect high catch rates, and our experience at other reservoirs is that tigers do not provide this. Yes, many anglers do figure out how to catch them, but the average angler does not catch many. We also get a considerable amount of natural reproduction from the cutthroat (35% of our cutthroat population on average), and we would get none from the tigers. Basically we would have fewer fish in the reservoir as a result of switching cutthroat for tigers, again making chub control more difficult with tigers. We closely monitor the fish in Strawberry every year, and our cutthroat are looking great as far as condition, fat levels, and growth. Cutthroat often look skinny compared to some other fish, but that is how they naturally grow until they get to larger sizes when they put on more girth. Increasing in length faster than they put on girth is their strategy to become a more effective predator, and it works. However, you may have noticed that cutthroat numbers have declined somewhat in the last couple of years, and is due to a couple of year classes of stocked fish not surviving well. These stocked fish came in undersized, and many were eaten. Cutthroat numbers should be on the rebound over the next couple of years, and we need them for chub control.
One possibility would be to switch rainbow production for tigers. However, based on angler opinion surveys we regularly do at Strawberry, I do not think this would be a popular option. Most anglers want more rainbows, not fewer, or none if we made the switch. If angler opinion did show that they wanted tigers instead of rainbows, we could consider that option. However, in any king of survey or petition it would be necessary that the anglers were aware that they would be giving up rainbows to get the tigers.
As far as kokanee, there is not much to bargain with there. We only raise a few thousand pounds of kokanee (compared to 100,000 lbs of cutthroat and rainbows), and that would not be enough to stock the numbers of tigers we would need to show up in the creel.
Again, a petition would help gain some interest and support for such a change, but we have to look at the broader picture as well. We could not make any such changes unless there was considerable evidence that the switch would work for us biologically (chub control, and other such factors), would provide the desired fishery (high catch rates), is cost effective from a production standpoint, and is what the majority of the angling public wants (would need to be determined from a broader scale angler survey).
I hope this helps clarify our current position on this. And by no means am I anti-tigers (or anti- most fish species for that matter). They all have their place. Thanks for letting me comment.
Alan Ward
Strawberry Project Leader
Utah Division of Wildlife Resources"
A couple of extra points worth mentioning.
1. From the letter. " the cutthroat have proven to do a great job at keeping chubs under control, we cannot switch that program to another species at this point. Tigers have not proven that they can do the same job on chubs. The tigers in Scofield have not yet shown that they can do the same job."
I think that because tiger trout are named after a ferocious land mammal predator, people assume they are equally predaceous. While they may indeed serve a role in managing chubs, the biologists are currently unsure about their controlling abilities, while they are quite certain that Bear Lake cutts work well in this role.
2. I almost hate to bring it up, but Gmanhunter is right about the perch and chubs. All of the examples given by you guys where perch and chubs currently exist (Starvation, Jordanelle, Fish lake,etc) have the same situation of dwindling chub numbers. Starvation chubs now are all big, very old, and as TD's pictures show, often have sores and tumors on them. Jordanelle is not far behind. Their chubs are all big and old. (Big enough to regularly suck down a 4 inch stickbait) Fish lake chubs are now so rare that the Lake trout now eat rainbows instead.
That said, perch are a horrible idea for Strawberry. You are trading a currently well managed potential problem in our current state at Strawberry for an unmanageable problem that perch would represent. Let us pray that we never go there.
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