Million dollar annual Flathead Lake gillnetting plan

The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes want the Bonneville Power Administration to award them $930,000 yearly for 50 years under the auspices of bull trout recovery.

Proposed is an extensive gillnetting program in Flathead Lake targeting lake trout, an introduced fish that, among other species, prey on bull trout. The program is supported by Trout Unlimited, dedicated to preserving native trout stocks nationally. Opposing the plan are the Montana Department of Fish Wildlife and Parks, Flathead Wildlife Inc. and others, including local fishing-charter businesses and area sport fishers.

On the surface, restoring bull trout to the estimated historic level of 6,000 fish in Flathead Lake would appear to be a noble cause. Most who embrace the prospect expect that the public and BPA to be ignorant of fisheries science relative to the current situation in Flathead Lake and the management success of FWP on bull trout recovery in the upper Flathead River drainage.

Further, they dismiss that electrical ratepayers should be concerned since BPA is federally mandated to spend millions of dollars annually for fisheries. The question is, might the proposed expenditure of $1 million of your money annually for gillnetting Flathead Lake lake trout be an appropriate use and, importantly, would the money be better spent on projects providing a sustainable return?

The draft environmental impact statement touted by the Tribes and Trout Unlimited was explicitly written to justify a poorly conceived fisheries management action that if implemented and, yes, funded by you the public, would dramatically diminish fishing opportunity and harvest rates in the largest freshwater lake west of the Continental Divide.

Unfortunately, no amount of effort or dollars is going to bring Flathead Lake to where it was historically, before Mysis shrimp were introduced in the 1980s, which lead to the demise of kokanee salmon, the expansion of the lake trout population and about a 50 percent decline in bull trout numbers. The Mysis shrimp are in the lake to stay.

As for bull trout, while they have declined, all evidence is that the lake population has stabilized at 50 percent — certainly not at a level that would justify a perpetual lake trout suppression effort at a cost of nearly $1 million annually. Even if the gillnetting were to bring bull trout back to about the historic average of 6,000 fish, it would amount to less than one bull trout per 21 surface acres of Flathead Lake and not enough to support any semblance of a healthy or sustainable sport fishery.

It could well be expected that the present day lake trout fishery, from the proposed gillnetting plan, would diminish to where there would be virtually no trophy-size lake trout left, and catch numbers of fish greater than about 16 inches would decline in the range of 80-90 percent, too low to sustain a sport fishery.

Flathead Electric Cooperative ratepayers and area sport fishers need to stand up and make it known that the gillnetting plan is nothing more than a facade. Ask yourself, do you really believe that the Tribes and Trout Unlimited would be interested in funding the project with their own money?

Demand accountability on how fisheries mitigation dollars are spent by BPA and support FWP, whose technical comments on the draft EIS have all but been ignored, having been founded on science and not political sensitivity and esoteric thinking.  

We do not need to collapse the sport fishery in Flathead Lake nor waste public money on an ill-conceived, never-ending fisheries suppression study amounting to $934,000 annually. If the Tribes and Trout Unlimited desire more than the current 50 percent bull trout population level in Flathead Lake, they might consider a bull trout hatchery instead of gillnetting lake trout and collapsing your fishery.

Bruce M. Barrett, of Lakeside, is a retired fisheries biologist.